Travertine cinerary urn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The reclining woman on the lid holds a fan in her right hand and a pomegranate in her elongated left hand. The frieze below depicts the murder of a woman, perhaps Ismene, youngest child of Oedipus and sister of Antigone, or perhaps the Matricide of Alkmene, mother of Herakles. At least twenty other urns, most from Volterra, have been attributed to the same workshop, the so-called Officina di Poggio alle Croci. Vestiges of the original polychromy are visible on the hair of some figures and on the footstool at bottom center.

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