A volute crater is a large vase of antiquity in which wine and water were mixed. This one, in white marble, was part of the garden furniture of a villa excavated in Stabies in 1749. The vase shows how the Romans reinterpret at the time, the Greek art they copy. It imitates a bronze container (krater) used in the banquets (symposia) of ancient Greece to keep the wine cut with water. The carved decoration represents companions of Bacchus, the god of wine, dancing.
