Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Bowdoin Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dionysos (god of wine) with a satyr and goat The decoration on the body is executed in a combination of black silhouette and outline drawing on a white ground. Such works, known as semioutline lekythoi, are associated with the workshops of two closely related artists, the Bowdoin Painter and the Athena Painter. The technique represents a modification of black-figure at a time when red-figure was gaining popularity.

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