03.24.31: exterior, obverse and reverse, sphinx standing over a nude man
The larger cup demonstrates the basic decorative format of this popular shape. Here, the inscriptions are meaningless strings of letters framing the figural composition, but on other examples, they accurately record the artist's name, label characters depicted, or offer greetings. Little Master cups can be dated more precisely than most Etruscan vases and so are important indicators of the date of this tomb.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta Little Master cup
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 565–550 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic, black-figure,
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 6 5/8 in. (16.8 cm) diameter 9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1903
Object Number:03.24.31
Found at Colle del Capitano near Monteleone di Spoleto in 1902
February 8, 1902, discovered by Isidoro Vannozzi; purchased by Benedetto Petrangeli from Vannozzi; purchased by O. Vitalini from Petrangeli; acquired in 1903, purchased from Vitalini, Paris.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1940. Handbook of the Etruscan Collection. p. 27, figs. 65–66, New York: Marchbanks Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America 11. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2. Attic Black-Figured Kylikes. pls. XII, XXXVIII, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cook, Brian. 1968. "A Class of Etruscan Bronze Omphalos-Bowls." American Journal of Archaeology, 72(4): p. 341 n. 10i.
Moret, J.-M. 1984. Œdipe, la Sphinx et les thébains: essai de mythologie iconographique, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 23, 2 vols. no. 8, p. 15, pl. 7, Rome: Institut suisse de Rome.
Markoe, Glenn and Nancy J. Serwint. 1985. Animal Style on Greek and Etruscan Vases : An Exhibition at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum. no. 24, pp. 21, 26, 32, Burlington, Vermont: Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1997. Vol. 8: Thespiades-Zodiacus. "Sphinx," p. 1160, no. 175, pl. 805, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Langridge-Noti, Elizabeth. 2003. "Mourning at the Tomb: A Re-evaluation of the Sphinx Monument on Attic Black-figured Pottery." Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1: pp. 147–48, fig. 7.
Emiliozzi, Adriana. 2011. "The Etruscan Chariot from Monteleone di Spoleto." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 46: pp. 60, 61, fig. III.44.
de Puma, Richard Daniel. 2013. Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 4.19b, pp. 46, 62, New Haven and London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios. 2016. Epigraphy of Art : Ancient Greek Vase-Inscriptions and Vase-Paintings p. 105, Oxford: Archaeopress.
Karoglou, Kyriaki. 2018. "Dangerous Beauty : Medusa in Classical Art." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 75(3): pp. 30, 32, fig. 48.
Chiarini, Sara. 2018. The So-called Nonsense Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Vases : Between Paideia and Paidiá. pp. 412–13, Leiden/ Boston: Brill.
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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.
