Terracotta lebes gamikos (round-bottomed bowl with handles and stand used in weddings)

Group of Berlin 2406

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Epaulia When the major Greek vase shapes were made as miniatures, they most commonly served as funerary offerings in children's graves. Before burial, they may have been used as toys. The subject here on both the body and the stand is the gift-giving on the day after a wedding, when the father of the bride sent presents to his daughter in her new home.

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