Silver bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The particularly dense decoration consists of a tondo surrounded by four friezes. In the center, the Egyptian goddess Isis suckles her son Horus amid papyrus plants. The innermost frieze shows a shepherd, a horse, a cow and calf. The next frieze presents six banqueters attended by men and women. The third zone combines banqueters with tribute bearers. The outermost zone depicts figures in carts departing from a citadel to a palm grove and going back. The carts are particularly reminiscent of the terracotta models. The Isis motif and the fortifications derive from Egyptian and Assyrian sources.

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