Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)

Hegesiboulos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior, foreigner with his dog Exterior, obverse, symposium (drinking party); reverse, komos (revel) In technique and execution, this cup represents the kind of enterprising and accomplished artist who flourished in Athens during the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. The technique is red-figure enhanced by a coral-red slip, a short-lived experiment. The decoration is exceptional for the trenchant observation that underlies the spirited rendering. The man on the interior is often identified as Levantine. His physiognomy would have been as outlandish to an Athenian as the appearance of his dog.

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