International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Burnham, R. (2023). The Euphronios krater: Education, stewardship, and public trust. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 24(si1.11). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea24si1.11

Acquired in 1972, the Euphronios krater reigned as a masterpiece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for nearly four decades. Its restitution to Italy in 2008 constituted a loss felt acutely by curators, the public, and the museum’s educators. This essay explores dialogic interpretations of the krater’s iconography developed in gallery programs led by the author as a route into questions of stewardship raised by restitution, examining how objects are restored to life by shared acts of attentive looking. The essay further considers convergent issues of deaccessioning and calls for the inclusion of museum educators’ voices as advocates for the public trust in all decision making that affects museums’ collections.