Terracotta rhyton (vase for libations or drinking)

Cow-Head Group

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The molded part is in the form of a cow's head. On the wheel-made lip, women and youths. The molded, figural part of the vase is in the shape of a cow's head. The meaning of these plastic vases is difficult to grasp. To some degree, the animal forms hark back to the prototypes that came to Greece from the East. By the classical period, however, the criteria for selection probably included novelty and, it would seem, a contrast to the usual surroundings of an urban, Athenian symposiast (participant in a drinking party).

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