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The Greek ceramic collection of the National Archaeological Museum (Spain) is the most outstanding of the institution among those of non-Spanish archeology. It includes both terracottas, more than a thousand; and vessels, one of the best sets in Europe. It also constitutes the bulk of the funds of the institution's Greek collection.

History

The National Archaeological Museum had from the beginning Greek ceramics, received from the Museum of Medals and Antiques of the National Library, and from the National Museum of Natural Sciences, which in turn had received them from its predecessor, the Royal Cabinet of Natural History. Of the first, 14 vessels, four of them attic and the rest of the suritalics, entered specifically. For their part, the pieces received from the Museum of Natural Sciences were fifty-two vessels, the Italian-Greek majority. Both the funds of the Museum of Medallas and Antiquities and part of those of the Royal Cabinet (the rest had been provided by its founder, Pedro Franco Dávila) came in the final analysis from the Royal Collection, to which they had arrived mainly thanks to the acquisitions of Charles III and Charles IV. Originally from the Royal Collection he also entered, but already in 1920, another lot that had been sent to the Prado Museum and which was part of a swap between the MAN and that museum. This set was composed of fifty-three Greek vessels, twenty-seven of them suritalics. The foundation funds were completed by a single attic glass received from the College of Diplomacy.

In 1871, an important set of terracottas, eighty-eight attic vessels and thirty Cypriots, gathered by the Eastern Scientific Commission, was added to the foundational collections, which carried out its work during the expedition to the eastern Mediterranean that the frigate carried out that year.

But the great impulse was the purchase in 1874 of the collection of archeology of the Marquis de Salamanca, the most important Spanish particular collection of the nineteenth century in this area, which included nine hundred and forty-four Greek vessels, mainly ceramics of red figures in the manufacture and the MagnoGreek. Among the many masterpieces he provided were the Esón Cup, the Bilingual Antifora, of Andócides and Psiax, and the Cracera of the madness of Heracles, of Asteas.

On the other hand, in 1876 the State bought the collection of Thomas Asensi, which included one hundred and thirty-seven terracottas and two hundred and eighty-seven vessels. In addition, in 1900 the donation was received from the German antiquary based in Spain Theodor Stützel, which included terracotas and 22 glasses.

Another milestone was the purchase in 1999 of the Várez Fisa collection of archaeology. Of the one hundred and eighty-one works, more than a hundred were Greek vessels, first level and indeed higher in quality to much of the pre-existing collections in the museum.

To the above-mentioned collections we have to add the specific acquisitions, entered through some lega