On the shoulder, Achilles waiting to ambush Troilos and Polyxena
The ambush depicted with verve and eloquence is one of the crucial episodes of the Trojan War. Troilos and Polyxena were children of Priam, the king of Troy. Achilles' stature is indicated by his height in relation to the fountain house and by the scale of his weapons. The raven foretells Troilos's imminent death. The youth appears lithe and lanky. His two noble horses will not save him from his fate.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta hydria (water jar)
Artist:Attributed to the Painter of London B 76
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 560–550 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:Overall: 15 13/16 x 13 7/8in. (40.1 x 35.2cm) diameter 11 3/8in. (28.9cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1945
Object Number:45.11.2
March 9, 1840, found in a tomb in Vulci, northern Lazio, Italy; collection of Lucien Bonaparte (1775-June 1840), Prince de Canino et Musignano; collection of William Henry Forman (1794-1869), the Pippbrook House, Surrey, UK; until 1929, collection of Frederick Wellington Ayer (1855-1936), Bangor, Maine; [May 4, 1929, purchased by Joseph Brummer at the Ayer sale through the American Art Galleries, New York (lot 300)]; [1929-1945, with Joseph Brummer, New York (N2716)]; acquired in 1945, purchased from Joseph Brummer.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1945. "Greek Painting: Four Newly Acquired Vases." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3(7): p. 167.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 41, 188, pl. 28b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. pp. 85–86, 683, no. 2 bottom, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 29, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1981. Vol. 1: Aara-Aphlad. "Achilleus," pp. 75–76, no. 234, pl. 79, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Moret, J.-M. 1984. Œdipe, la Sphinx et les thébains: essai de mythologie iconographique, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 23, 2 vols. p. 70, n. 12, Rome: Institut suisse de Rome.
Tölle-Kastenbein, Renate. 1994. Das archaische Wasserleitungsnetz für Athen und seine späteren Bauphasen. p. 90, Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1997. Vol. 8: Thespiades-Zodiacus. "Seirenes," p. 1097, no. 48, pl. 736, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2001. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art. pp. 122, 127, 131, 142, 167–9, 171-2, 224, fig. 31, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Schmidt, Gudrun. 2002. "Rabe und Krähe in der Antike : Studien zur archäologischen und literarischen Überlieferung. Ph.D. diss." Ph.D. Diss. p. 74, 76, fig. 19. Reichert.
Moore, Mary B. 2004. "Horse Care as Depicted on Greek Vases before 400 B.C.." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 39: pp. 35, 48, fig. 24.
Hedreen, Guy Michael, Prof. Jenifer Neils, and Ralf von den Hoff. 2009. "Achilles Beyond the Iliad." Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, Sabine Albersmeier, ed. pp. 44–45, fig. 16, Baltimore: Walters Art Museum.
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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.
