
Marble bust of a youth
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Copy of the head of a Greek statue of the 4th century B.C. The very short hair and the broken cartilage of the ears indicate that this head belonged to either a statue of Herakles or a victorious athlete. The Romans often created decorative works by carving the heads of well-known Greek statues on busts or on rectangular herms. The surface of this piece has been severely cleaned, and the back may have been re-cut in modern times.
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.