Attic red-figure
Onesimos 'Sack of Troy' cup
Museum: Rome, Museo Nazioanle di Villa Giulia (previously J. Paul Getty Museum)
Size: 19cm high, 46.6cm diameter (cup)
Function: convivial
Technique: red-figure
Style:
Subject/s: Sides A. Briseis is led away from Achilles. B. Hector and Ajax, supported by Apollo and Athena, duel. Interior. Sack of Troy, a central group of Neoptolemus about to fling the child Astynax on to an altar where old white-hared Priam already lies and the distraught tears her hair, surrounded by groups of pleading women and dying men.
Date: early 5th c.
Analysis: size, wealth of iconographic detail and carefully written inscriptions clearly reveal a special piece, made all the more so by the name of the maker Euphronios on the foot.