Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Villa Giulia Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Libation at warrior's departure From the end of the sixth century B.C., the lekythos served as a funerary vase to contain offerings of oil for the dead. During the second quarter of the fifth century, white-ground lekythoi, on which the decoration was painted over a white slip, became the typical funerary vase. While the subject here is the libation at the departure of a warrior, the shape suggests that the warrior did not return alive and that this vase was placed on his grave.

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