Terracotta kylix: band-cup (drinking cup)

Oakeshott Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Obverse, return of Hephaistos Reverse, Dionysos, the god of wine, and Ariadne among satyrs and maenads The subject here is the same as on the two kraters by Lydos. The band is treated as a frieze with particular emphasis on the central motif. Hephaistos, who rides his mule as though it were a horse, is escorted by Dionysos. The wine god reappears on the reverse with Ariadne, whom he had rescued when she was abandoned on the island of Naxos. The lively figures and considerable added red and white are most appropriate for a drinking cup that could well have been used with kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water) like those by Lydos.

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