Getty Museum

Strainer

Date

second half of 4th century B.C.

Medium

Silver

Culture

Greek

Department

Implements

Institution

Getty Museum

Today wine is filtered before bottling. The Greeks, however, used strainers to filter out bits of grape skin and other sediment when serving wine. The form and decoration of this strainer were popular in the 300s B.C., especially in Macedonia in northern Greece. The flanged rim and projecting handles allowed the strainer to rest on the rim of a container. Both functional and decorative, the perforations in the strainer's bowl form a whirligig surrounded by concentric circles. As with the ladle, the ends of the handles terminate in ducks' heads after curving sinuously out from the their wide bases, which are engraved with palmettes.

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