Marble calyx-krater with reliefs of maidens and dancing maenads

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The peristyle courtyards and gardens of the villas belonging to wealthy Romans were filled with fountains, sculpture, and monumental ornaments such as this vase. Many of these decorative works were eclectic combinations of shapes and motifs drawn from the long, rich tradition of Greek art that had been produced some five hundred years earlier in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. The six female figures that surround this vase are copies and adaptations taken from famous classical reliefs. On one side, two modestly wrapped maidens approach a girl playing a double flute, while on the other side, three maenads, followers of Dionysos, dance in abandon to the music of wooden clappers. Gnarled trees above the handles evoke an outdoor setting.

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