Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Narrow bands of tiny rosettes and interlocking ivy above a zone of alternating long petals, acanthus leaves and rosettes. On medallion, an eight petal rosette framed by two ridges. The reddish-brown glaze of this bowl, similar to that on 17.194.1825 nearby, suggests it was made in Asia Minor, and perhaps more specifically, Pergamon. Red-ware, as this type of pottery is called, had a relatively short period of production. It was ultimately supplanted by red-glossed Roman terra-sigillata and Arrentine pottery beginning around the middle of the 1st century B.C. Examples of such later wares may be seen in case 49 in this gallery.

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