In the reserved zone between the handles, repeated on each side, a pair of confronted sirens stand with wings widespread and their heads turned back. A red-hearted palmette is attached by a tendril to the roots of each handle. On the offset lip, a pattern of alternating black and red tongues. Below the figured zone, a band of laurel to left, framed by three lines above and below. A corona of fine rays above an all-black base. Inside, a circumscribed dot within a small reserved tondo. Reassembled from fragments. Three lacunae in the wall of the cup are filled in, but the painting has not been reconstructed. Footplate and most of stem restored. Some joins filled in and retouched. Although of the standard Cassel cup type, this example is one of the relatively few decorated with little-master figures on the bowl in place of chains of ivy or lotus.
PROVENANCE
Formerly Coll. Dr. K. Deppert, Frankfurt. Thereafter Coll. Päselt, Karlsruhe, Germany, since the 1970s; listed (without illus.) in an inventory under no. 29, August 1993.
NOTE
For a Cassel cup of standard type, cf. W. Hornbostel, Kunst der Antike. Schätze aus Norddeutschem Privatbesitz, Cat. Hamburg (Mainz, 1977) 275 f., cat. no. 243 with illus. For an example with figures in the handle zone, see CVA Ireland 1 (2000) 28, pl. 21.1-3: University College Dublin 104 (old V3022). See further H.A.G. Brijder, BABesch 68 (Leuven, 1993) 141, no. 43 for lists.

