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Date : near 440 B.C.
Material : Terra cotta
Acquisition : Fletcher Fund (1924)
| Orpheus among Thracians
Item 10 on 81
Greek Antiquities
Container
Vitrine : V03
Area related
Attique (Greece)
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| Description |  |
Decoration
• obverse : Orpheus among Thracians
• reverse : libation scene
Orpheus, the best known of the mystical musicians, is associated with Thrace in the northernmost part of Greece. After he had descended into the underworld to find his beloved wife, Eurydice, and had lost her, he withdrew into solitude. Feeling rebuffed, Thracian women set upon Orpheus and killed him. Here he is shown seated on a rock formation and engrossed in his music. The central figure, wearing typical Thracian dress, identifies the setting, while the woman who holds a sickle in her left hand foreshadows Orpheus's fate.
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