The Bolsena silver. The inscriptions in Etruscan must have been added subsequently. They read "of the tomb" suggesting that the objects were acquired by an Etruscan and buried with him. The bands of ornament and alternate leaves on the lid have gilding.
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Title:Silver and gilt pyxis (box with lid)
Period:Hellenistic
Date:early 3rd century BCE
Culture:Apulian, possibly Tarentine
Medium:Silver, gold
Dimensions:H. with cover 3 5/16 in. (8.4 cm)
Classification:Gold and Silver
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1903
Object Number:03.24.6a, b
From Bolsena, Italy (Richter 1915, p. 182)
Before 1903, found in a tomb in Bolsena, northern Lazio; [with Ortensio Vitalini, Rome]; acquired in 1903, purchased from O. Vitalini.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1915. Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes. New York: Gilliss Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 136, fig. 86, p. 142, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 176, fig. 120, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 176, fig. 120, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 67–69, fig. 84, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1940. Handbook of the Etruscan Collection. pp. 44, 53, fig. 164, New York: Marchbanks Press.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 67–69, fig. 84, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Oliver, Andrew Jr. 1977. Silver for the Gods : 800 Years of Greek and Roman Silver. no. 22, p. 55, Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1984. "Greek and Roman Art." Notable Acquisitions (Metropolitan Museum of Art), No. 1984/1985. no. 108, pp. 11–12, 61
, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1984. "A Greek and Roman Treasury." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 42(1): no. 108, p. 61.
Pfrommer, Michael. 1987. Studien zu Alexandrinischer und Grossgriechischer Toreutik frühhellenistischer Zeit, Archäologische Forschungen 16. pp. 94, 170, 260, Berlin: Mann.
Stern, E. Marianne. 1995. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. pp. 170–71 n. 10, Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.
Fontaine, Paul. 1995. "A propos des inscriptions suthina sur la vaisselle métallique étrusque." Revue des études anciennes, 97: pp. 206 n. 30, 207.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 372, pp. 313, 477, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
de Puma, Richard Daniel. 2008. "A Third-Century B.C.E. Etruscan Tomb Group from Bolsena in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." American Journal of Archaeology, 112(3): pp. 432, 436, fig. 7.
de Puma, Richard Daniel. 2013. Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 6.28b, pp. 19, 190, 193–94, 200, New Haven and London: 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.