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Terracotta, H 42 ½ inches

Red-Figure Volute Krater

South Italian, Apulia, ca. 330–320 B.C.

This virtuoso piece is attributed to the Baltimore Painter, one of the most important of the late Apulian painters. The artist has captured the climactic moment in the Trojan War described in Homer's Iliad when Iris, the winged messenger of the gods, has come to the sulking Achilles (for the death of Patroklos) to persuade the Greek hero to return to the fray. The reverse shows the deceased hero sitting in a naiskos (small shrine).

Museum purchase, Dorothy Spreckels Munn Fund

2005.24a–b