Terracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's head

Terracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's head

Class N: The Cook Class of Head Vases

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Head vases became important in Attic vase-painting at the end of the sixth century B.C. and continued almost through the fifth. Considerable numbers of these small examples exist, mostly with the head of a woman but occasionally with that of Herakles or another male figure. Since the Greeks tended not to waste valuable materials on funerary offerings, one wonders whether such pieces contained a token dedication.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's headTerracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's headTerracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's headTerracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's headTerracotta oinochoe (jug) in the form of a woman's head

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.