Terracotta amphora (jar)

Nikoxenos Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Obverse and reverse, the death of Priam Priam, king of Troy, has taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Herkeios. The Greek warrior Neoptolemos attacks with a spear from the left as Hecuba, Priam's wife, gesticulates in despair. The Nikoxenos Painter worked in both black-figure and red-figure. It is interesting that while he employed red-figure for the decoration, the type of amphora is that preferred by black-figure artists.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art