The two sakkoi (snoods) and the mirror hanging on the wall indicate that the ladies are indoors. The pigment that originally rendered the clothing of the one at the left is lost, and the artist's preparatory drawing is visible. She is tying the belt that allows the upper part of her chiton (undergarment) to fall like a blouse. Her companion holds up an alabastron (perfume vase).
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)
Artist:Attributed to the Achilles Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 440 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; white-ground
Dimensions:H. 11 7/8 in. (30.2 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1908
Accession Number:08.258.17
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1909. "The Department of Classical Art: The Accessions of 1908. IV. Vases." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 4(6): pp. 101, 105, fig. 5.
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. 161–62, fig. 111, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 161–62, fig. 111, 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. p. 128, fig. 154, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 15, fig. 97, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 114, p. 149, pls. 114, 176, New Haven: Yale University Press.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. p. 128, fig. 154, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 99, 243, pl. 83a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 999, no. 181, 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. 438, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Reilly, Joan. 1989. "Many Brides: "Mistress and Maid" on Athenian Lekythoi." Hesperia, 58(4): p. 414, pl. 75.
Oakley, John H. 1997. The Achilles Painter. pl. 129b, Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Blundell, Sue. 2002. "Clutching at Clothes." Women's Dress in the Ancient Greek World, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, ed. p. 167 n. 50, London: Gerald Duckworth.
Oakley, John H. 2004. Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi. pp. 38, 59, Cambridge: Cambridge University 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.
