Obverse and reverse, Amazonomachy (battle between Greeks and Amazons)
The number of figures and the complexity of poses here reflect an innovation that entered vase-painting about the middle of the fifth century B.C. and is generally attributed to the influence of monumental wall-painting. The frontal mounted Amazon in the middle of the composition, her falling comrade to the left, and the overlapping of figures, shields, and weapons dramatically convey the tumult of battle. At the same time, the many spatial planes strain the implicitly shallow stage provided by the black background of a vase. The fundamental incompatibility between naturalistic representation and the expressive possibilities offered by vase-painting led to the latter's demise—although that would come only at the end of the fourth century B.C. In the meantime, artists exploited every possibility to depict motion and emotion in the human figure.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta calyx-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)
Artist:Attributed to the Painter of the Berlin Hydria
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 460–450 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 21 15/16 in. (55.8 cm) diameter 22 15/16 in. (58.3 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1907
Accession Number:07.286.86
Said to have been found at Numana, Italy (Beazley 1963, p. 616)
[Until 1907, with Alfredo Barsanti, Rome]; acquired in 1907, purchased from A. Barsanti.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 106, fig. 65, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A., Marjorie J. Milne, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1922. Shapes of Greek Vases. New York.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 139–40, fig. 96, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 139–40, fig. 96, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Jacobsthal, Paul. 1934–1936. "The Nekyia Krater in New York." Metropolitan Museum Studies, 5(1): p. 135.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 99, pp. 129–31, pls. 99, 170, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1944, 1949. Greek Painting: The Development of Pictoral Representation from Archaic to Graeco-Roman Times. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. p. 91, fig. 31, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 86, 227, pl. 67b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1957. Amazons in Greek Art. no. 2, p. 161, pl. 74, 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1958. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 4. p. 59, fig. 76, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. p. 91, fig. 31, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. pp. 616, 1662, no. 3, Add. 1, pp. 615–17, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 75, 80, fig. 13.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. Perspective in Greek and Roman Art. p. 23, n. 4, fig. 89, New York and London: Phaidon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. p. 397, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Barron, John P. 1972. "New Light on Old Walls the Murals of the Theseion." The Journal of Hellenic Studies, : pp. 35–36, 39, pl. IVb.
Barron, John P. 1972. "New Light on Old Walls the Murals of the Theseion." The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 92: pp. 35–36, 39, pl. IVb.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. pp. 258, 501, pl. 87d, Cambridge, England.
Arias, P.E. 1980. "Nuovo Contributo alla Tradizione Figurata dell'Amazzonomachia del V sec. a. C." Forschungen und Funde : Festschrift Bernhard Neutsch, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft: p. 52.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1981. Vol. 1: Aara-Aphlad. "Amazones," p. 606, no. 296; " Antiope II," p. 859, no. 17, pl. 686, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 43, pp. 10, 62–3, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bol, Renate. 1998. Amazones Volneratae: Untersuchungen ze den Ephesischen Amazonenstauen. n. 502, Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Veness, Ruth. 2002. "Investing the Barbarian? The Dress of Amazons in Athenian Art." Women's Dress in the Ancient Greek World, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, ed. p. 99 n. 29, London: Gerald Duckworth.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 126, pp. 116, 430, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Plantzos, Dimitris. 2018. The Art of Painting in Ancient Greece. pp. 117–18, fig. 113, Atlanta: Lockwood Press.
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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.
