Terracotta stamnos (jar)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

On the shoulder, obverse, lion While a wide variety of vase shapes were imported from Attica into Etruria, some seem to have been made specifically for the Etruscan market. The kyathos (ladle), for example, is an Etruscan shape that was reinterpreted in Attic workshops and exported. The stamnos is found so much more frequently in northern Italy than on the Greek mainland that it too may have been produced for a specific clientel.

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