Limestone votive capital

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The capital combines elements of the Doric and Ionic orders. The molding between the column shaft and the square top recalls a Doric capital. Above, the volutes are rendered as simplified disks with concentric circles. The addition of the six-petalled rosettes as decoration is another unusual aspect of the capital. It is unlikely to have served as an architectural element of a building but rather, like the triangular Ionic capital in the adjacent gallery (74.51.2796), as part of a free-standing votive monument. The hollow in the top can thus be interpreted as a setting for a dedication.

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