Both sides illustrate the same scene. Herakles, having forced the Cretan bull down on one knee, tightens a rope that binds the animal around its horns, left hind leg, and testicles.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta neck-amphora (jar) with Herakles and a bull
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 520–510 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 15 5/8 in. (39.8 cm). Diameter 10 5/8 in. (27 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1941
Object Number:41.162.193
Said to be from Vulci, Italy
Bonaparte, Lucien. 1829. Museum etrusque, fouilles de 1828 à 1829. Vases peints avec inscriptions. no. 80, p. 36, pl. 3, Viterbo, Italy.
1834. Catalogue de Vases Grecs provenant des fouilles de M. Lucien Bonaparte, prince de Canino... Tableaux d'anciens maîtres des trois écoles... : Vente à Paris, place de la Bourse, les 17, 18, 19 et 20 Mars 1834. no. 22, p. 7.
De Witte, Jean. 1834. Bullettino dell'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, : no. 3, p. 241.
Panckoucke, Charles Louis Fleury and Lean Jean Joseph Dubois. 1840. Catalogue des vases grecs formant la collection de Mr. C.L.F. Panckouke. no. 65, Paris: Typographie Panckoucke.
Christie's, London. 1902. Objects of Art. March 13–14, 1902. no. 248, p. 27.
Hackl, Rudolf. 1909. Merkantile Inschriften auf attischen Vasen. no. 315, p. 34, München: Oskar Beck.
Christie's, London. 1912. Antiquities from Bœotia, Tanagra, and Asia Minor. December 10, 1912. no. 80, p. 12.
Hoppin, James C. and Albert Eugene Gallatin. 1926. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 1, Hoppin and Gallatin Collections. p. 4, Gallatin pl. 3.3, .4, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. p. 61 n. 58, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Robinson, David Moore. 1956. "Unpublished Greek Vases in the Robinson Collection." American Journal of Archaeology, 60(1): p. 6.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Prof. Mary B. Moore. 1976. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America 16. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 4. Attic Black-Figured Neck-Amphorae. pl. 35, 5–8, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Johnston, Alan W. 1979. Trademarks on Greek Vases. p. 125, Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1990. Vol. 5: Herakles-Kenchrias. "Herakles," p. 61, no. 2330, pl. 76, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. pp. 16–17, fig. 7, 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.