Terracotta pyxis (box) with lid

Terracotta pyxis (box) with lid

Painter of Philadelphia 2449

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior scene with six women conversing and working wool The woman to the right of the column, who has just arrived, offers a long fillet (band) to her seated friend and receives a flower in return. Behind her, another woman walks toward a seated woman holding up a necklace. Two women work wool. One stands with a distaff in her left hand. From the hank of wool wound around it, she has drawn out a length of fibers and is twisting them into yarn with her right hand by twirling the long spindle that hangs over a wool basket. The other woman sits with one leg propped up and her skirt raised above the knee. She apparently is winding wool into a skein and drawing the yarn over her leg to prevent it from snarling.

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.