Terracotta hydria: kalpis (water jar)

Syleus Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Youth and boy; inscribed the boy is fair The handles of this terracotta hydria, with a broad palmette where the handle joins the body, are influenced by their counterparts in bronze. On a terracotta work, the palmette is purely decorative. On a bronze hydria, the broad handle attachment, which may assume many forms, strengthens the points of contact to the body of the vase.

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