Marble portrait of the emperor Augustus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This over life-size fragment may have been part of a seated statue of the emperor made during the reign of his step-son and successor, Tiberius. Over two hundred and fifty portraits of Augustus, including numerous full-length statues, are known today. In antiquity, there were probably as many bronze statues of the emperor as there were marble ones, but relatively few of the former have survived. Augustus himself claimed to have removed eighty silver statues that had been set up in his honor in the city of Rome alone. Although Augustus’ features are individualized, he is represented in an idealized, ageless way. When he died in A.D. 14, he was seventy-seven years old, but no portraits of him in old age are known.

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