The decoration combines birds, fish, horses, and a wolf in an exuberantly dynamic composition. Of particular note is the large cauldron; the two birds' heads are the artist's interpretation of the griffin attachments that typically decorated bronze vessels. Compare the splendid bronze griffin head (1972.118.54).
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Title:Terracotta conical lekythos (vase for oil)
Period:Early Protocorinthian
Date:ca. 700 BCE
Culture:Greek, Corinthian
Medium:Terracotta
Dimensions:H. 3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm) diameter 6 7/16 in. (16.4 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1923
Object Number:23.160.18
[Until 1923, with John Marshall]; acquired in 1923, purchased from John Marshall.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1924. "Early Greek and Etruscan Vases: Recent Accessions." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19(4): p. 98, fig. 3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 59, 61, fig. 36, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 59, 61, fig. 36, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 35, 183, pl. 23a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Pinney, Gloria Ferrari and Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway. 1979. Aspects of Ancient Greece no. 57, pp. 120–21, Allentown, Penn.: Allentown Art Museum.
Markoe, Glenn and Nancy J. Serwint. 1985. Animal Style on Greek and Etruscan Vases : An Exhibition at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum. no. 2, pp. 12, 14, Burlington, Vermont: Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont.
Langdon, Susan. 1993. From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer no. 65, pp. 176–78, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri.
Gisler, Jean-Robert. 1995. "Erétrie et le peintre de Cesnola." Archaiognosia [Greek transliteration], 8: 52.d.
Denoyelle, Martine and Mario Iozzo. 2009. La céramique grecque d’Italie méridionale et de Sicile: Productions coloniales et apparentées du VIIIe au IIIe siècle av. J.-C. pp. 47–9, fig. 40, Paris: Picard.
Moore, Mary B. 2009. "An Early Protocorinthian Lekythos-Oinochoe in the Metropolitan Museum." Antike Kunst, 52: pp. 3–19, pls. 1.1–.4, 2.1.
Coulié, Anne. 2013. La céramique grecque aux époques géométrique et orientalisante. 1, XIe-VIe siécle av. J.-C.. p. 140, n. 282, Paris: Picard.
Aruz, Joan, Sarah B. Graff, and Yelena Rakic. 2014. Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age no. 137, p. 262, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Aruz, Joan and Michael Seymour. 2016. Assyria to Iberia : Art and Culture in the Iron Age pp. 264–65, fig. 1a, b, New York.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. p. 55, fig. 31, 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.