Terracotta pyxis (box) with lid

Terracotta pyxis (box) with lid

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The lids to these containers also served as dishes. The larger, plain version is said to have been found at Arretium (modern Arezzo, Italy). The smaller is decorated with a barbotine relief design, suggesting a slightly later date for production; it belongs to a type of sigillata known as Tardo-Padana Ware, made in the Po Valley. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.194.869)

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta pyxis (box) with lidTerracotta pyxis (box) with lidTerracotta pyxis (box) with lidTerracotta pyxis (box) with lidTerracotta pyxis (box) with lid

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.