Silver-gilt bowl

Silver-gilt bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The decoration of this bowl consists entirely of animals. In the tondo, there is a bull; in the inner frieze, seven grazing horses. The outer frieze shows cows and calves, mares and foals, and a horse, separated by papyrus. The bowl is distinguished not only by its iconography but also by the stippled quality of much of the chasing.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.