The elegant image of a woman bending over a basin of water fills the circular medallion at the bottom of this wine cup. In front of her, over the basin, hangs a drinking cup of another form, and behind her is a sakkos, a snood like the one she wears on her own head. She is gracefully attired, absorbed in her task, and alone.

Douris, the painter of this cup, shows a particular sensitivity to female figures. In his hands, this woman at her everyday task becomes a person of substance and distinction, not unlike the later portrayals of women at work in paintings by Chardin or Degas. The drinking cup would have been used at a symposium, an all-male drinking party that was closed to mothers, wives, and daughters. The man who used this cup at the symposium would have found this image at the bottom, before the wine was poured and of course after he had drunk it. The woman might have reminded him of the hetairai present with him at the party, or of his own wife at home.

On the other side of this case, you can see men with women who could and did attend symposia. These are hetairai, courtesans who operated outside the strictures of feminine respectability in classical Athens. The best hetairai were educated women of culture, admired for the range of their talents, as well as their physical charms. They might recite poetry or play music at the symposium, and certainly took part in conversation. The greatest hetairai commanded independent fortunes and the respect of distinguished men.