Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)

Hieron

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior, flute-playing satyr and maenad Exterior, obverse and reverse, symposium The exterior provides a particularly full illustration of the symposium (drinking party) and, especially, of its paraphernalia: a wreathed column-krater for mixing wine and water, a large skyphos for the relief of a sick symposiast, a lamp stand that also accommodates a ladle and strainer, and krotala (castanets) and a picnic basket suspended from the back wall. Compared with the figures on the outside, the satyr and maenad (followers of the wine god, Dionysos) appear formal indeed.

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