Terracotta oinochoe (jug)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Yellow-slipped pottery is unusual in Apulia but typically occurs in pairs of oinochoai and paterae. The jug served to pour liquids and the patera was one of several shapes used for offerings. The handle of the patera is in the shape of a youth with hands raised; two rams form the transition to the bowl; and a ram's head appears below the youth's feet—a convention for bronze handles since the Archaic period.

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