Terracotta fish-plate

Terracotta fish-plate

Bastis Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although this plate is among a group of similar fish-plates by the Bastis Painter, certain features are different. On this piece, the body of the fish is outlined in white, not black, the mouth, eyes, and dots on the body are drawn differently, and the decoration around the central depression is a band of strokes, not the usual wave-pattern.


Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.