Bronze model of a cart with farmyard group

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This farmyard group consists of a cart, a plough, two bulls, two oxen, two sheep, two goats, and two pigs. All fourteen pieces are said to have been found together and probably comprised a votive offering or a child's toy. The plough was cast in one piece of bronze, but the joints of the wooden original model are still all indicated. The wheels of the cart are of a type used by the Etruscans. The shape of the cart has parallels in Roman iconography. For example, it is similiar in style to carts used for the transportation of food or baggage on the Column of Trajan in Rome from the second century A.D.

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