Terracotta calyx-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)

Persephone Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Above, obverse, Odysseus pursuing Circe; reverse, women and king Below, obverse, man between women; reverse, youth and women The primary and most interesting scene on this two-row krater shows Odysseus pursuing the enchantress Circe. In the air between them are Circe's magic wand and the skyphos (deep drinking cup) that contains the potion with which she transforms men into animals. Behind Odysseus, two of his men with features of a boar and a horse or mule gesticulate toward him. The pursuit may also be mythological.

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