Interior and exterior, Theseus in Poseidon's undersea palace and his arrival in Athens
The subject of the decoration is elucidated in a poem by Bacchylides, active in the fifth century B.C. On the interior and one side of the exterior, Theseus, who is bound for Crete to kill the Minotaur, takes leave of his father and stepmother, Poseidon and Amphitrite. On the other side, the victorious Theseus is welcomed back to Athens by Athena.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Artist:Attributed to the Briseis Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 480 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 5 3/16 in. (13.2 cm) width with handles 15 3/8 (39.1 cm) diameter 12 1/16 in. (30.7 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1953
Accession Number:53.11.4
Alfieri, Nereo. 1959. "Grande Kylix del Pittore di Pentesilea con Ciclo Teseico." Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale d'Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte, 8: p. 67.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 406, no. 7, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1970. "Reports of the Departments." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29(2): p. 83.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. Greek Vase Painting: An Introduction. no. 26, pp. 52–53, 71, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. "Greek Vase Painting." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31(1): no. 22, pp. 52–53, 68.
Barron, John P. 1972. "New Light on Old Walls the Murals of the Theseion." The Journal of Hellenic Studies, : p. 40 n. 148.
Barron, John P. 1972. "New Light on Old Walls the Murals of the Theseion." The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 92: p. 40 n. 148.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1981. Vol. 1: Aara-Aphlad. "Amphitrite," p. 730, no. 76, pl. 590, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Harrison, Evelyn B. 2000. "Eumolpos Arrives in Eleusis." Hesperia, 69(3): pp. 271–73, 276, figs. 4–7.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2001. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art. p. 52, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 111, pp. 104, 428, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Calame, Claude. 2009. "Thésée l'Athénien au Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York: Scènes Étiologiques de Légitimation et Questions de Méthode." An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies, Dimitrios Yatromanolakis, ed. pp. 98–127, figs. 1a-c, Athens: Institut du Livre, A. Kardamitsa.
Ekroth, Gunnel. 2009. "Why (not) Paint an Altar? A Study of Where, When and Why Altars Appear on Attic Red-figure Vases." The World of Greek Vases, Vinnie Nørskov, Lise Hannestad, Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, and Sian Lewis, eds. pp. 97–98, fig. 7, Rome: Quasar.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. pp. 84–5, fig. 33, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
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.
