Marble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis

Marble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The crowning molding is badly damaged, but beneath it is a better preserved egg-and-dart molding surmounting a bead and reel motif. The corner egg is embellished with an anthemion (floral-form ornament). The elaborate treatment of this detail corresponds to that of the eggs on the front of the Ionic capital of the Sardis Column (26.59.1), with which this anta capital was likely paired in the inner porch of the temple. Beneath the bead and reel molding the elaborate decoration continued with a lesbian leaf motif, another bead and reel and a frieze of acanthus wreaths (see drawing). Along with the column, displayed nearby, these anta fragments are among the few surviving ornaments from the original Hellenistic decoration of the temple.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at SardisMarble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at SardisMarble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at SardisMarble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at SardisMarble fragment of an anta (pilaster) capital from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis

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.