The inscription "singers at the Panathenaia" offers some explanation of the subject on the obverse. Three Papposilenoi—old satyrs—hold lyres and move toward a man with a pair of flutes. These are costumed performers who played some part in the festival that took place annually in honor of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta bell-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)
Artist:Attributed to Polion
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 420 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 11 5/16 in. (28.7 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1925
Accession Number:25.78.66
Inscription: Inscribed: "singers at the Panathenaia"
[Until 1925, with G. Knight & Figlio, Naples]; acquired in 1925, purchased from G. Knight & Figlio.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. "Two Theater Vases." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22(2): pp. 57–58, figs. 2, 4.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 19–20, fig. 22, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 8, fig. 62, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 155, pp. 195–96, pls. 155, 171, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bieber, Margarete. 1939. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. p. 8, fig. 9, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 19–20, fig. 22, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 101, 241, pl. 81e, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. pp. 1172, 1685, no. 8, Add. 1, pp. 1171–73, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. p. 459, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Maas, Martha and Jane McIntosh Snyder. 1989. Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece. pp. 146–7, 162, fig. 13, New Haven: Yale University Press.
West, Martin Litchfield. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. no. 29, p. 55, pl. 16, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Anderson, Warren D. 1994. Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece. p. 19, pl. 3, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Miller, Margaret C. 1997. Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity. p. 162 n. 68, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1997. Vol. 8: Thespiades-Zodiacus. "Silenoi," p. 1119, no. 97, pl. 761, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Bundrick, Sheramy. 2005. Music and Image in Fifth-century Athens. fig. 17, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oakley, John H. 2020. A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases. p. 126, pl. 21, 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.
