Terracotta amphora (jar)

Attributed to the Princeton Painter
ca. 500–490 BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 154
Obverse, battle scene with quadriga (4-horse chariot)
Reverse, departing warriors

Battle scenes like the one on this amphora would have brought to mind Homeric passages such as this:

As inhuman fire sweeps on in fury through the deep angles
of a drywood mountain and sets ablaze the depth of
the timber and the blustering wind lashes the flame
along, so Achilleus swept everywhere with his spear
like something more than a mortal harrying them as
they died, and the black earth ran blood.

(Iliad, book 20, lines 490-94).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Terracotta amphora (jar)
  • Artist: Attributed to the Princeton Painter
  • Period: Archaic
  • Date: ca. 500–490 BCE
  • Culture: Greek, Attic
  • Medium: Terracotta; black-figure
  • Dimensions: H. 15 1/8 in. (38.4 cm)
    diameter of mouth 6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm)
    diameter of foot 5 15/16 in. (15.1 cm)
  • Classification: Vases
  • Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1956
  • Object Number: 56.171.9
  • Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art

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