Bronze statuette of Herakles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The exquisitely modeled lion-skin knotted about this figure's waist identifies Hercle (Herakles). He probably once held a club in his raised right hand; vestiges of another object are preserved on his left knee. The figure probably decorated a bronze tripod of the type made at Vulci. Herakles may have been represented with Apollo, his opponent in their struggle for the sacred Delphic Tripod, a favorite subject in Greek and Etruscan art in the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. and one especially appropriate for a tripod.

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