Corinthian Column-Krater with a Banquet and a Procession

A column-krater was the bowl in which Greeks mixed wine with water at a drinking party, and on this one the party is painted around the bowl that served it. Three bearded men recline on cushioned couches, each with a low table of food in front of him, while bows, quivers and swords hang on the wall above. Lying down to drink was a custom the Greeks had taken over from the Near East not long before, and Corinthian vase painters of these years liked to show it.

The other side carries a procession of 12 women with two men holding spears, and below runs a frieze of lions, wild goats, a stag and a siren. On one of the flat plates at the top of the handles, two men stand in a vat treading grapes, so the wine turns up on the vessel at both ends of its story, from the vat to the couch.

The krater was painted in Corinth around 600 BC by the anonymous artist known as the Memnon Painter, and it came to the Louvre in 1861 with the collection of the Marquis Campana.