During the middle of the fifth century B.C., the white-ground technique was commonly used for lekythoi, oil flasks placed on graves, and for fine vases of other shapes. As classical painters sought to achieve ever more complex effects with the limited possibilities of red-figure, the white background gave new prominence to the glaze lines and polychromy. The decoration of this pyxis reflects the delight with which an accomplished artist like the Penthesilea Painter depicted a traditional subject.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Terracotta pyxis (box)
Artist:Attributed to the Penthesilea Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 465–460 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; white-ground
Dimensions:H. 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm) H. with cover 6 3/4 in. (17.2 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1907
Accession Number:07.286.36a, b
Said to be from Cumae (Beazley 1942, p. 588, no. 112)
Before or in 1906, excavated at Cumae; [afterwards, with Tom and Ignazio Virzi, Palermo]; [by 1907, purchased from T. and I. Virzi by Edward Perry Warren, Lewes House, England]; acquired in 1907, purchased from E.P. Warren.
1906. A brief account of E. Gilliéron's beautiful copies of Mycenaean antiquities in galvano-plastic. p. 28 n. 126.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1908. "White Athenian Pyxis." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3(8): pp. 154–55.
Howe, Winifred E. 1916. "The Children's Bulletin: Three Days in the Life of a Roman Prince: Germanicus' First Day at School." Supplement to the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11(11): pp. 1–3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 109, fig. 68, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A., Marjorie J. Milne, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1922. Shapes of Greek Vases. New York.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 130–31, fig. 88, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 130–31, fig. 88, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 68–69, fig. 85, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 21, fig. 141, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 73, pp. 101–103, pl. 77, New Haven: Yale 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. 68–69, fig. 85, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. p. 98, fig. 73, New Haven: Yale University Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1949. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 7(8): p. 212.
Rodney, Nanette B. 1952. "The Judgment of Paris." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11(2): pp. 57, 67.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 85, 226, pl. 66a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. p. 98, fig. 73, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. pp. 890, 1673, no. 173, Add. 1, pp. 879–90, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: Dutton.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 3: pp. 75, 79, fig. 11.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. p. 428, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Immerwahr, Henry R. 1971. "A Projected Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions." Acta of the Fifth International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy : Cambridge, 18th to 23rd September, 1967. no. 8, p. 5, Oxford: Blackwell.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. Greek Vase Painting: An Introduction. no. 27, pp. 7, 54–55, 71, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. "Greek Vase Painting." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31(1): no. 23, pp. 7, 54–55, 68.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 58, pl. 13, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Wehgartner, Irma. 1983. Attisch Weissgrundige Keramik: Maltechniken, Werkstätten, Formen, Verwendung. no. 16, pp. 141–2, 145, 221 n. 28, Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Paridis Iudicium," p. 180, no. 46, pl. 116; "Priamos," p. 509, no. 12, pl. 398, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Marconi, Clemente. 1994. "Iphigeneia a Selinunte." Prospettiva, 75-76: p. 51, fig. 3.
Wullschleger, Manuela. 2000. "Un chef-d’oeuvre de la céramique falisque le stamnos Nordmann." Genava, 48: p. 28 n. 126.
Cohen, Beth. 2000. Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art p. 173, Leiden: Brill.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2001. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art. pp.184, 189, 213, 215, 219, 220, 222, 232, fig. 45, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Wehgartner, Irma. 2002. "Color on Classical Vases." Color in Ancient Greece: The Role of Color in Ancient Greek Art and Architecture 700-31 B.C., Michalis A. Tiverios and Despoina S. Tsiafakis, eds. p. 92, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Woodford, Susan and Cambridge University Press. 2003. Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity. p. 91, fig. 62, Cambridge.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 130, pp. 118, 430–31, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Shapiro, H. Alan and Dr. Olga Palagia. 2009. "Alcibiades: The Politics of Personal Style." Art in Athens During the Peloponnesian War, Olga Palagia, ed. p. 262, n. 57, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. pp. 17, 19, fig. 9, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Galitz, Kathryn. 2016. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. no. 19, p. 26, New York: Skira.
Hixenbaugh, Randall. 2019. Ancient Greek Helmets : A complete guide and catalog. pp. 243–44, fig. 131, New York: Hixenbaugh Ancient Art.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. p. 153, fig. 58, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
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.
