Gold sheet appliques

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These delicate objects come from the Crimea in the Ukraine, where they adorned the grave clothing of eastern Germanic men and women buried there in the fifth century A.D. Sewn onto the sleeves and necklines of the garments, these appliqués are made from thin gold foil, which was punched and pressed to create various patterns. The decoration of festive and official attire with small gold appliqués had a long tradition in the Crimea. Ancient texts describe one third-century ruler of the Bosporan kingdom as wearing a robe decorated with several hundreds of them.

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