Fragment of a terracotta calyx-krater (mixing bowl)

Black Fury Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The ransom of Hector and Apollo with a goddess The larger fragment shows Priam, king of Troy, kneeling as he asks the Greek hero Achilles for the corpse of his son Hector. Behind Priam stands Hermes, the messenger god identifiable by his winged boots. The male figure at the far left is probably an attendant of Priam. The second fragment shows Apollo, god of music, holding his kithara, a lyre used in performance. The seated female before him may be his sister Artemis. The painting is exceptional for the rich detail and polychromy as well as the characterization of the distraught Priam.

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