The eye motif in Greetings of a Distant Friend, 1916, provides yet another iconographic and thematic connection with ancient imagery (Fig.1). De Chirico uses it to signify a distant or possibly departed presence enticed back by a culinary offering. The connection is made even more explicite if we compare Metaphysical Interior, 1916, with the 5th century BC Leckythoi vase-painting (Figs. 2&3). Lekythoi vases contained libations oils associted with funerial rituals and the vases were buried with the dead. The imagery painted on the body of the vase invariably made an honourific reference to the departed soul. The vase-painting illustrated on this page depicts a dead worrier handing his nolonger required helmet to a woman, possibly his wife, whilst the eye on the shield, signifying his departed soul, peers at this poignant exchange.