On the shoulder, a seated woman, perhaps a goddess, is approached by four youths and eight dancing maidens On the body, women are making woolen cloth.
One of the most important responsibilities of women was the preparation of wool and the weaving of cloth. Here, in the center, two women work at an upright loom. To the right, three women weigh wool. Farther to the right, four women spin wool into yarn, while between them finished cloth is being folded.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)
Artist:Attributed to the Amasis Painter
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 550–530 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 6 3/4 in. (17.15 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1931
Accession Number:31.11.10
Until 1931, with Charles T. Seltman, England and the US (1929-1931); acquired in 1931, purchased from C.T. Seltman.
McClees, Helen. 1924. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections. p. 41, fig. 47, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1931. "A Stand by Kleitias and an Athenian Jug." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26(12): pp. 291–94, figs. 4–5.
Faxon, Harriet. 1932. "A Model of an Ancient Greek Loom." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 27(3): pp. 70–71, figs. 1–2.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 39, 41, fig. 47, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Wace, A. J. B. 1934. "The Veil of Despoina." American Journal of Archaeology, 38(1): p. 111 n. 3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 15, fig. 93, New York: Plantin Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1936[1934]. A Guide to the Collections, Part 1: Ancient and Oriental Art, 2nd edn. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Haspels, Caroline Henriette Emilie. 1936. Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi. pp. 12, 14, 99, Paris: E. de Boccard.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 39, 41, fig. 47, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 58, 197, pl. 37i, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Crowfoot, Grace. 1956[1954]. "Textiles, Basketry, and Mats." A History of Technology: From Early Times to the Fall of Ancient Empires, Vol. 1, 3rd edn, Charles Singer, Eric John Holmyard, and Alfred Rupert Hall, eds. p. 444, fig. 281, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. pp. 154, 688, no. 57, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 84, 87, fig. 30.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. pp. 64, 66, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
McLauchlin, Barbara Kelley. 1981. "New Evidence on the Mechanics of Loom Weights." American Journal of Archaeology, 85(1): p. 80 n. 14.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Alan L. Boegehold. 1985. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens. no. 48, pp. 47, 185–87, 201, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 1985. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens. no. 48, pp. 9, 15, fig. 5, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 22, p. 37, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. 1991. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. pp. 72, 92 n. 7, figs. 2.38, 3.13, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Keuls, Eva. 1993. The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. p. 106, fig. 93, a, b, New York: Harper & Row.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Isler, Hans Peter. 1994. "Der Töpfer Amasis und der Amasis-Maler. Bemerkungen zur Chronologie und zur Person." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 109: p. 113.
Palagia, Olga. 1999. "'Through a Glass Darkly’ II: Misconceptions about the Study of Greek Sculpture." Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12-17, 1998: Classical Archaeology towards the Third Millennium: Reflections and Perspectives, Roald F. Docter and Eric M. Moormann, eds. p. 299 n. 9, Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum.
Wagner-Hasel, Beate. 2002. "The Graces and Colour Weaving." Women's Dress in the Ancient Greek World, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, ed. pp. 24–5, fig. 3, London: Gerald Duckworth.
Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2003. Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. p. 222, figs. 150a, 150b, London: Classical Press of Wales.
Neils, Jenifer, Lesley A. Beaumont, and H. Alan Shapiro. 2003. "Children and Greek Religion." Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past, Jenifer Neils, John H. Oakley, and Katherine Hart, eds. p. 151, fig. 10, New Haven: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 73, pp. 76, 420, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Moore, Mary B. 2007. "The Princeton Painter in New York." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 42: pp. 32–33, fig. 19.
Calder, Louise. 2011. Cruelty and Sentimentality: Greek Attitudes to Animals, 600-300 BC. no. 14, pp. 21, 166, Oxford: Archaeopress.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. p. 68, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Moore, Mary B. 2013. "Herakles Takes Aim: A Rare Attic Black-Figured Neck-Amphora Attributed to the Princeton Painter." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 48: p. 56 n. 75.
Oakley, John H. 2020. A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases. p. 11, fig. 1.5a–b, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
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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.
