On one side of the vase, Euphronios depicted the death of the mythic hero Sarpedon, a scene plucked from Homer's "Iliad." On the opposite side, he captured an image of Athenian youths arming for battle. The krater was probably produced in 515 B.C., seven years before the establishment of democracy in the city of Athens. Working in the new red-figure technique - which enabled them to depict the body in red hues, as opposed to the black paint that predominated early on - they displayed a new sensitivity to human anatomy and a keen interest in creating a sense of depth in their paintings.
Scholars refer to Euphronios and his collaborators as "the Pioneers," a group of potters and painters regarded as among the first self-styled artistic schools in Western history. The krater is named for its painter, Euphronios, an Athenian artist who worked at a time of great change. So as the Met experiences its own Classical revival, the magnificent krater is saying goodbye (albeit quietly) to the city it has called home for the past 35 years. As a result, the krater will leave New York for good this January. Paul Getty Museum last week to agree to return 40 of its antiquities. The krater's sense of exclusion is justified: It was caught up in the same kind of cultural property dispute with the Italian government that led the J. Once used for the mixing of water and wine at symposia, it sits somewhat anonymously in a side room, peering like a forgotten child onto the new Classical Galleries down the hall.
that has long been one of the Metropolitan Museum's prized possessions. There is an air of melancholy surrounding the Euphronios Krater, an imposing ceramic vessel made in Greece in the sixth century B.C. With the Euphronios Krater about to wend its weary way back to Italy, the Wall Street Journal has a nice little article on it:
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