This plaque illustrates a mythological subject related to the advent of the god Dionysos in Greece. Because the two daughters of King Proitos of Argos refused to recognize his divinity, they were driven mad and committed violent and unseemly acts until they were healed by the seer Melampos. Here, in their madness, they have unpinned their clothes and stand partially naked.

Until 1917, collection of J. Pierpont Morgan; acquired December 17, 1917, gift of J. Pierpont Morgan.

Picard, Ch. 1941. In Epitymvion Chrestou Tsounta. Athens, pp. 446-51.

Richter, G. M. A. 1945. "An Ivory Relief in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." American Journal of Archaeology 49: 261-69, figs. 1-4, 6-8.

Picard, Ch. 1946. "Les deux déesses: Ivoire archaïque de la collection J. Pierpont Morgan au Metropolitan Museum, New-York." Revue archéologique, 6th ser., 26: 93-96, fig. 1.

Schefold, K. 1949. Orient, Hellas und Rom in der archäologischen Forschung seit 1939. Bern: A. Francke, p. 108, pl. 1, 1.

Homann-Wedeking, E. 1950. Die Anfänge der griechischen Grossplastik. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, p. 107.

Richter, G. M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 31-32, 295, n. 21, pl. 20, a.

Picard, Ch. 1956. "L'ivoire archaïque des deux-déesses au Metropolitan Museum, New York." Monuments et mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot 48: 9-23, pls. I, II, figs. 1-3.

Boardman, John. 1964. Greek Art. New York: Praeger, p. 44, ill. no. 33.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: E. P. Dutton, p. 120, no. 72, ill.

Robertson, M. 1975. A History of Greek Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 141, pl. 8b.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 10, p. 25.

Strouse, Jean with Joan R. Mertens. 2000. "J. Pierpont Morgan: Financier and Collector." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57(3): pp. 42-43, fig. 47.

Picón, Carlos A., et al. 2007. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 43, pp. 57, 416.