Obverse, Europa pleading with Zeus for the life of Sarpedon; Hera, Hypnos, Pasithea Reverse, Europa with attendants watching Hypnos and Thanatos bringing the body of Sarpedon
The decoration probably reflects the Europa or Carians, a lost play by the Greek tragedian, Aischylos. The subject of the obverse is unusual and has posed difficulties of identification. The depiction of Sarpedon being transported by Sleep and Death to his native Lycia for burial originated in Athens, possibly with the painter Euphronios, and it assumed some currency on vases. With the numerous props indicating the abode of Zeus and Hera and of the enthroned Europa, the Apulian vase likely represents a specific theatrical interpretation.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta bell-krater (mixing bowl)
Artist:Attributed to the Sarpedon Painter
Period:Late Classical
Date:ca. 400–380 BCE
Culture:Greek, South Italian, Apulian
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 19 5/8 in. (49.9 cm) diameter of mouth 22 3/8 in. (56.8 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1916
Accession Number:16.140
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1916. "Recent Accessions of Greek Vases." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11(12): pp. 255–56, figs. 6–7.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. no. 34, pp. 13, 152, 163–67, 170, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bieber, Margarete. 1939. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. p. 146, fig. 200, 200, Princeton: Princeton 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.
Metzger, Henri. 1951. Les représentations dans la céramique attique du IVe siècle. no. 34, pp. 13, 152, 163, Paris: E. de Boccard.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 116, 256, pl. 96c, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1966. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 7. p. 56, fig. 78, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Brown Classical Journal. 1989-1990. Brown Classical Journal, 6: p. 24.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Pasithea II," p. 201, no. 2, pl. 133; "Sarpedon," pp. 697–98, no. 14, pl. 522; "Thanatos," p. 905, no. 10, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Shapiro, H.A. 1994. Myth into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece. pp. 26–7, figs. 14-15, London: Routledge.
Kaltsas, Nikolaos. 2004. Agon no. 169, pp. 289–91, Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 178, pp. 156–57, 438, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Spivey, Nigel Jonathan. 2019. The Sarpedon Krater: the Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase. pp. 163–65, figs. 45, 46, London: Head of Zeus, Ltd.
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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.
