Terracotta askos (flask with a handle over the top)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scylla, the Homeric monster with the upper body of an alluring woman and scaly limbs eminating from her hips, rises from the body of this vase. Scylla lurked in a cave on the Straits of Messina, seizing and devouring passing dolphins, sharks, or sailors. Scylla was a popular subject on Canosan vases of this type, which characteristically combine sculpted and painted images. On the body of this vase remain traces of the richly colored ornament in pink and blue paint on a white slip.

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