Terracotta squat lekythos (oil jar)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Events in the Athenian festival of the Adonia The Adonia was a festival held in summer and dedicated to Adonis, the beautiful young hunter beloved by Aphrodite and killed by a boar. From his spilled blood, flowers issued from the ground. The celebration of the Adonia included setting pots of plants on rooftops to germinate and quickly wither. The lekythos shows a woman on a ladder receiving a planter from Eros, presumably to place on a roof. Similar objects appear in the field. Seated below the ladder is a young man, perhaps Adonis, and behind Eros is a woman, perhaps Aphrodite. The procession of figures behind the goddess may be connected with the ritual.

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