Bronze thymiaterion (incense burner)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Incense burners were popular items among the Etruscans, who often buried their dead with them. This example is typical of a type normally associated with Vulci, the site of extensive bronze-working activity throughout much of Etruscan history. A robust nude youth, a descendant of the Greek kouros type, stands on a triangular platform supported by a tripod with lion's-paw feet. The shaft rising from his head terminates in a plant-like form that originally supported a small bowl for the incense.

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