Limestone Herakles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The statue was considerably reworked by Cesnola's "restorers" so that numerous features of the original are no longer clear. The proper left arm and the legs were certainly reattached; the original position of the right arm has also been obscured. Herakles wears a tunic, belt, modified kilt, and lionskin. In his left hand he held a bow, half of which appears against his body. (The pickle-shaped club that he brandished for many decades was added in modern times and has been removed.) On his right thigh are the ends of the arrows that he held in his right hand. Although the head 74.51.2857 indicates that Cypriot sculptors were working on a large scale as early as the beginning of the sixth century B.C., it was only during the second half of the century that monumental pieces were produced in some quantity.

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