Nigel Spivey not only explores the particular culture that produced the vase, but also reveals how its central motif was elaborated throughout classical antiquity and then reworked as a Christian tableau. The Sarpedon Krater is both the extraordinary story of a small and occasionally scandalous object, once consigned to the obscurity of an Etruscan tomb, and a fascinating case study of the deep classical roots of the ideas and iconography of Western art.