Obverse, Theseus slaying the Minotaur Reverse, men weighing merchandise
Discovered at Agrigento in Sicily before 1801, this may be the first Greek vase with a potter's signature to have been published in modern Europe. Besides the signature, there is an inscription praising a youth, Klitarchos, as handsome. After Herakles, Theseus is the major hero in Athenian iconography. He was credited with uniting the principalities of Attica and with numerous exploits. Here he kills the Minotaur (part-man, part-bull) in the palace of King Minos on Crete. The reverse shows a large scale with containers on each pan and a man bringing them into balance.
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Said to have been found in Agrigento, Sicily (Christie, Manson & Woods 1917, lot 16)
Ca. 1800, acquired by Captain Felice Nicolas in Palermo; before 1906, purchased by Thomas Hope from Felice Nicolas; by 1806 and until 1831, collection of Thomas Hope, London; 1831-1862, collection of Henry Thomas Hope (his son), Deepdene; 1862-1884, collection of Anne Adele Hope (wife of H.T. Hope), Deepdene; 1884, inherited by Lord Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne from Anne Adele Hope (his grandmother); 1884-1917, collection of Lord Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope; July 1917, purchased by Viscount Cowdray at the Hope sale through Christie, Manson & Woods (lot 16); 1917-1946, collection of Viscount Cowdray, Dunecht House, Aberdeenshire; [December 1946, purchased by S.B. Burney for Joseph Brummer through Sotheby’s, London (lot 48)]; [December 1946 -- March 1947, with Joseph Brummer, New York (P16137)]; acquired in March 1947, purchased from Joseph Brummer.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Marjorie J. Milne. 1947. "The Taleides Amphora." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5(9): pp. 221–28.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 57, 199, pl. 39b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. pp. 174, 669, 688, no. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. p. 72, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Forsyth, William Holmes and The International Confederation of Dealers in Works of Art. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." The Grand Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Sixth International Exhibition presented by C.I.N.O.A.. p. 2, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 31, pl. 4, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 83, pp. 82, 421, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. no. 10, pp. 13, 24, 66–70, 82, 88, 98, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
