Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Interior, satyr with wineskin and drinking horn Exterior, Achilles and Polyxena A series of black-figure cups of the later first quarter of the fifth century B.C. does not allow easy attribution to Attica or Boeotia. The fabric is poorly fired, the execution exceedingly careless, often with a combination of silhouette and incision. The Attic pieces come from the workshop of the Haimon Painter, a prolific producer of lekythoi (oil flasks) as well as skyphoi (deep drinking cups). Although the fabric of this cup has the pink hue characteristic of Attic clay, the misfiring of the interior and its execution resemble the Boeotian examples. The interpretation of the well-established subject of Achilles and Troilos on the exterior suggests a painter unfamiliar with the canonical story. According to the latter, the Greek hero Achilles lies in wait for the Trojan prince Troilos near a fountain house where Polyxena, Troilos' sister, fetches water. When Achilles attacks Troilos, Polyxena runs off, dropping her hydria (water jar). This cup shows Polyxena and Achilles on either side of the fountain house; Troilos may be the warrior running up from the other side.
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.