Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Grooved ridges above a zone of heart-ivy with berries framed by bands; below, alternating lotus and acanthus leaves with tendrils, interspersed with seven-petal rosettes. Red-glazed bowls such as this were made in Pergamon between the 2nd–1st centuries B.C. In addition to their distinctive glaze, many of these bowls were characterized by their taller, more cylindical profiles, and the placement of the decorative motifs on the lower half of the bowl's exterior surface. Although worn, the free-style relief decoration is carefully rendered yet spontaneous, suggesting a date around the beginning of the 1st century B.C.; by contrast towards the end of the century, the designs on these bowls assume a stiff and more predictable character.

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