Rosso antico torso of a centaur

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek statue of the 2nd century B.C. During the Classical period, centaurs—mythical creatures, half horse and half man—represented to the Greeks the wild, uncivilized aspects of man, but by the second century B.C., they were far more tame and appeared in bucolic park-like settings together with Eros, god of love, and the entourage of Dionysos. This powerful torso carved in rosso antico comes from a statue of a young centaur. It was attached to the body of a horse that must have been carved in a different color marble. The original Hellenistic statue was probably bronze and one of a pair of centaurs, one old and one young, that were meant to be viewed together. A baby Eros straddled the back of each, inciting the young male and restraining the old one in a poignant evocation of sexual decline. A number of Roman copies survive; the most celebrated pair, carved in black marble, was found in 1736 at Hadrian’s Villa near Rome, and they are now among the most famous ancient works in the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

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