Terracotta neck-amphora (storage jar)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Corinthian potters and painters invented a technique of silhouetted forms that would evolve into the black figures of Athenian vase painting. Typically, their vessels, like this neck amphora, are decorated with tapestry-like patterns of small animals and plant motifs. A variety of animals- bulls, lions, birds and goats march around the belly of this vase, and multiple rosettes fill the background. Above the queue of exquisite animals is a padded dancer, who stands between two lions.

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