Terracotta kylix: lip-cup (drinking cup)

Epitimos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior, archer on horseback and warrior dismounting Exterior, obverse and reverse, profile heads above, inscription between animals below During the third quarter of the sixth century B.C., the lip-cup and the band-cup were the two preferred types of drinking cup. The lip-cup's exterior is clay-colored, and the usual decoration consists of a figural motif at the top and an inscription and palmettes below. Many variations occur, however. The profile head is a favorite motif, particularly associated with a painter called Sakonides but popular also with his contemporaries.

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