As part of its precedent-setting repatriation agreement with the Republic of Italy, New York's
Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning the
Euphronios Krater (ca. 515 B.C.) and 20 additional objects for other loaned works. January 13, 2008 is the last date to see it stateside. It will join other antiquities restored to Italy in an exhibition at the Quirinale, Rome's presidential palace, later this month.
Throughout negotiations with The Met, the Italians maintained that the Greek Archaic terracotta
calyx-krater (a bowl for mixing wine and water) was excavated illegally from a tomb in Cerveteri, a site near Rome. Signed by both Euxitheos, its potter, and the painter Euphronios, the museum purchased the vessel for $1 million in 1972.
The two-handled bowl, decorated in the Attic red-figure style, shows the slaying of Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, during the Trojan Wars. The messenger-god Hermes with upraised hand directs winged representations of the twin brothers Sleep and Death to return the heroic Trojan ally's body to his native Lycia for burial.
The first object to replace the famous krater and on view since November 2006 is:
- a Greek Laconian terracotta kylix (drinking cup) with the image of a man, sea creature and snakes (ca. 560-500 B.C.), attributed to the Typhon Painter of Cerveteri.
The remaining three works to be displayed starting January 16, 2008 are:
- a jug in the shape of a young woman's head (6th-5th Century B.C.) by Charinos, believed to have been a member of Euphronios' workshop;
- a terracotta cup depicting an assembly of Greek gods on Mount Olympus (515-510 B.C.), signed by the potter Euxitheos and the painter Oltos; and
- a southern Italian krater whose decoration describes Oedipus solving the Sphinx's riddle (4th Century B.C.).
All four objects and future loans from Italy to The Met will be on view for four-year periods.
