Stucco relief panel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stucco played an important role in Roman construction and interior design. In its simplest form, it provided an attractive smooth surface for walls and columns built of rough masonry and brick. Since stucco was applied wet, its surface could also be shaped with either a template or a mold to provide a decorative architectural framework for wall frescoes. Stucco was also extensively employed to cover ceilings, especially barrel vaults in the halls, corridors, and rooms of large houses, in public buildings such as baths, and in tombs. These ceilings could be extremely elaborate, including panels with figures modeled freehand in situ. The eight ceiling panels displayed here belong to this last category. Their subjects are typical of the genre; they include satyrs, maenads, cupids, and panthers. Other mythological figures and creatures were also popular. Occasionally, too, the stucco was painted so that the pale relief decoration stood out more prominently against a deeply colored background.

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