Terracotta funnel-jar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In its shape and decoration, this piece differs significantly from the vases of Greek derivation with which it was found. With its rotund, closed body and oblique neck, it is related to the indigenous Italic, Daunian form exhibited in the neighboring gallery of South Italian art. Instead of painted decoration, mold-made figures were fastened with pegs to the flange that serves as a ground-line. The surviving example belongs to a representation of the death of the Niobids. The reliefs shown close by were acquired with the vase but do not belong to it. This work was found in the same burial as the loutrophoroi 06.1021.245 and 06.1021.249; the pyxis 06.1021.253a, b; and the two-handled vase 06.1021.246a, b.

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