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Ancient Art Department
Ancient Art Council
Legion of Honor
100 34th Avenue, Lincoln Park
San Francisco, CA 94121
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).
Terracotta
H 42 ½
Museum purchase, Dorothy Spreckels Munn Fund
2005.24a–b