Euphronios Krater

[1] Illegally excavated from an Etruscan cemetery near Cerveteri, it was part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1972 to 2008, until repatriated to Italy under an agreement negotiated in February 2006.

[citation needed] The scene of the anonymous Greek youths on the reverse shares this naturalistic style, using all the Pioneer Group's characteristic techniques of anatomical accuracy, natural poses, foreshortening, and spatial illusion.

[citation needed] The death of Sarpedon, a quasi-mythological story which would be familiar to anyone viewing the krater, is an episode involving specific historical and mythological figures.

This inscription has allowed art historians to date the krater to approximately 520–510 BC, because at this time Leagros was considered the handsomest man in Greece.

The krater was sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Robert E. Hecht, an American antiquities dealer living in Rome, for US$1.2 million on November 10, 1972.

[5] Hecht, who was accused of trafficking in illicit antiquities, claimed to have acquired the krater from Dikran Sarrafian, a Lebanese dealer, whose family had been in possession of the piece since 1920.

[7] Thomas Hoving, director of the Met and the primary negotiator in the purchase, later said in his memoirs, Making the Mummies Dance, "An intact red-figured Greek vase of the early sixth century B.C.

[8] To allay concerns, some six months after the krater was bought he prompted the Metropolitan Museum to send a private detective to Zurich in an endeavor to reinforce the cited Sarrafian provenance.