In February 1972, Hecht alerted the Metropolitan Museum to the existence of the krater with a letter to Dietrich von Bothmer, the Metropolitan’s Curator of Greek and Roman Art. The provenance of the krater after its arrival in Zurich is well-documented.
By this time, the krater was in a fragmentary though completely restorable state, so Hecht left it with Fritz Bürki in Zurich for restoration. The tombaroli are said to have sold the krater to Giacomo Medici for something in the region of $88,000, with Medici, in turn, arranging for the krater to be smuggled into Switzerland, where he sold it to Robert Hecht for $350,000 (Silver 2009: 37-52, 287-90). However, the krater is generally believed to have been discovered in December 1971 by tombaroli digging illegally on private land in the Greppe Sant’Angelo area of the Etruscan cemetery of Cerveteri (Silver 2009: 287-90). The find spot and early provenance of the Euphronios krater have never been firmly established. In 2006, the Metropolitan restored ownership of the krater to Italy. The Metropolitan’s director at the time, Thomas Hoving, described it as ‘ … a work that would force the history of Greek art to be rewritten’ (Hoving 1993: 318). It was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 for the then record-breaking price of $1 million, and is thought to have been excavated illegally in Italy in 1971. On the reverse are three Athenian youths arming themselves for battle. It is decorated on the front with a scene depicting the death of Sarpedon, who is attended by Hypnos and Thanatos with the god Hermes looking on. The Euphronios (Sarpedon) krater is a red-figure calyx krater made in Athens circa 515 BC, 46 cm high and 55 cm in diameter, signed by Euxitheos as potter and Euphronios as painter. It was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 for the then record-breaking price of $1 million, and is now thought to have been excavated illegally in Italy in 1971.
The Euphronios (Sarpedon) krater is a red-figure calyx krater made in Athens circa 515 BC, signed by Euxitheos as potter and Euphronios as painter.
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