Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx

Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This capital and sphinx originally crowned the tall grave marker of a youth and a little girl on view in this gallery. A plaster copy has been set on the monument itself. The sphinx, a mythological creature with a lion's body and a human head, was known in various forms throughout the eastern Mediterranean region from the Bronze Age onward. The Greeks represented it as a winged female and often placed its image on grave monuments as guardian of the dead. This sphinx, which retains abundant traces of red, black, and blue pigment, was carved separately from the capital on which it stands. Its plinth was let into a socket at the top of the capital and secured by a metal dowel and a bed of molten lead. The capital is in the form of two double volutes (spiral scrolls) designed like a lyre. The front face of the capital also had a painted design of palmettes and volutes.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinxMarble capital and finial in the form of a sphinxMarble capital and finial in the form of a sphinxMarble capital and finial in the form of a sphinxMarble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx

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.