Obverse, Poseidon, the god of the seas, among Greek warriors Reverse, the stables of Poseidon
The subjects are drawn from book 13 of Homer's Iliad. Poseidon, seeing the Greeks hard-pressed, decided to help renew their valor. At his underwater palace, he ordered his chariot prepared so that he could ride to their aid. On one side of this cup, an atmosphere of feverish excitement reigns in the stables as grooms attempt to soothe four high-strung horses tethered to columns. Supernatural forces seem to have been unleashed: tiny figures race over the horses' backs and swing down from the architectural frieze above. On the other side of the cup, Poseidon, carrying a trident, urges on the Greek heroes.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Artist:Attributed to the Amasis Painter
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 540 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 4 7/8 in. (12.4 cm) diameter 10 1/8 in. (25.7 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989
Accession Number:1989.281.62
By 1971 and until 1989, collection of Norbert Schimmel, New York; acquired in October 1989, gift of Norbert Schimmel.
Metzger, Henri. 1951. Les représentations dans la céramique attique du IVe siècle. no. 14, pp. 16, 23–24, 8, Paris: E. de Boccard.
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Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1981. Vol. 1: Aara-Aphlad. "Aias I," p. 323, no. 61; "Aias II," p. 338, no. 9: pl. 238, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Alan L. Boegehold. 1985. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens. no. 60, pp. 41, 45, 66, 217–20, pl. 6, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 1985. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens. no. 60, pp. 9, 15, fig. 6, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 1992. "Ancient Art: Gifts from The Norbert Schimmel Collection: Greek and Roman." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 49(4): p. 42.
von Bothmer, Dietrich, Carlos A. Picón, Joan R. Mertens, and Elizabeth J. Milleker. 1993. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection 1992–1993." Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 51(2): p. 42.
Carratelli, Giovanni Pugliese and Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli. 1994. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale: Atlante delle Forme Ceramiche, Suppl. 2, Vol. 1. p. 183, fig. 218, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Poseidon," p. 476, no. 261, pl. 377, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2001. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art. p. 84 n. 98, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Boardman, John. 2002. The Archaeology of Nostalgia: How the Greeks Recreated Their Mythical Past. p. 179, fig. 164, London: Thames and Hudson Inc.
Moore, Mary B. 2004. "Horse Care as Depicted on Greek Vases before 400 B.C.." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 39: pp. 35, 39–40, figs. 7–8.
Hemingway, Seán A. 2006. "Horse and Man in Greek Art." Sculpture Review, 55(2): p. 9.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 77, pp. 79, 420–21, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Marconi, Clemente. 2009. "Early Greek Architectural Decoration in Function." Koine: Mediterranean Studies in Honor of R. Ross Holloway, Derek B. Counts and Anthony S. Tuck, eds. pp. 6–9, figs. 1.2-1.4, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Mitchell, Alexandre G. 2009. Greek Vase-painting and the Origins of Visual Humour. p. 3 n. 4, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. no. 14, pp. 16, 23–24, 83-88, 90, 104, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. pp. 181, 267, New York: Phaidon Press.
Arbeid, Barbara, Elena Ghisellini, and Maria Rosaria Luberto. 2022. Ho Pais Kalos : Scritti Di Archeologia Offerti a Mario Iozzo per Il suo Sessantacinquesimo Compleanno p. 286, fig. 7, Monte Compatri (RM): Edizioni Espera.
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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.
