Marble torso of a boy

Marble torso of a boy

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek statue of ca. 425–400 B.C. The small scale and violent action of this figure suggest it may represent one of Niobe's children, who were killed after Niobe boasted she was superior to Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis, because she had more offspring. Sculptural groups depicting the boys and girls vainly trying to escape the deadly arrows of Apollo and Artemis were popular throughout antiquity.

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.