Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)

Kleophrades Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior, symposiast (participant in drinking party) Known chiefly for his work on pots, the Kleophrades Painter is also associated with kylikes both early and late in his career. The man depicted here holds a cup, presumably filled with wine, in his left hand. With the cup in his right hand he plays kottabos—an after-dinner pastime in which the symposiasts knocked the finials off lamp stands with the lees remaining in their kylikes.

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