Getty Museum

Statuettes of Three Banqueters

Date

550–525 B.C.

Medium

Bronze

Culture

Greek

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

Three men recline, each supporting himself on an elbow, partaking in a symposium or drinking party. All are bearded and bare-chested, with a cloak wrapped around their lower bodies, yet each is distinguished from the others. One holds a _keras_ (drinking horn), another gesticulates as if making a point in the conversation, and a third rubs his belly. The trio probably decorated the rim of a large bronze vessel that might have been used in a symposium for mixing wine and water. The symposium was a key institution in aristocratic Greek life. Not merely a party in the modern sense of the word, these all-male events often had a strong ritual aspect, indoctrinating and reinforcing the values of society among their participants.

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