Terracotta oil lamp

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mold-made, with large ring handle. Discus: radiating, rounded petals, surrounding a central filling hole. Shoulder: a narrow horizontal band decorated with close-set raised lines or dots. Ornate volutes flanking angular nozzle. Broad handle, with large oval finger hole, decorated with a central groove flanked by two lines, running the length of the handle and with a horizontal bridge at the back. A broad raised base ring, and a flat base. Intact.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art