Scholars refer to Euphronios and his collaborators as 'the Pioneers,' a group of potters and painters regarded as among the first self-styled artistic schools in Western history. The krater is named for its painter, Euphronios, an Athenian artist who worked at a time of great change. So as the Met experiences its own Classical revival, the magnificent krater is saying goodbye (albeit quietly) to the city it has called home for the past 35 years. As a result, the krater will leave New York for good this January.

Paul Getty Museum last week to agree to return 40 of its antiquities. The krater's sense of exclusion is justified: It was caught up in the same kind of cultural property dispute with the Italian government that led the J. Once used for the mixing of water and wine at symposia, it sits somewhat anonymously in a side room, peering like a forgotten child onto the new Classical Galleries down the hall.

that has long been one of the Metropolitan Museum's prized possessions. There is an air of melancholy surrounding the Euphronios Krater, an imposing ceramic vessel made in Greece in the sixth century B.C.

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