Fragment of the marble stele (grave marker) of a youth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A nude image of the deceased youth projects in high relief from the concave, red background. He stands erect, left foot forward, in the same position as the nearby three-dimensional statue of a kouros (youth). The stele is carved in a marble with gray striations that was quarried at Mount Hymettos, just outside of Athens. Two more fragments of this stele have recently been identified in Athens - one with the left hand, the other with the chest and upper arm. Plaster casts of the two pieces (Agora S1751 and NM 4.808) are juxtaposed with the Metropolitan Museum's stele in the adjacent photograph.

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