Fragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and child

Fragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and child

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment very likely belongs to a typical Tarentine relief showing a reclining male figure at whose feet stands or sits a woman holding a small child. The identity of the figures continues to be debated. The male figure may be Dionysos, the woman and child Persephone and Iakchos.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and childFragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and childFragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and childFragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and childFragment of a terracotta relief of a woman and child

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.