Marble sarcophagus fragment

Marble sarcophagus fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment can be recognized from other intact examples as part of a sarcophagus on which the portrait bust of the deceased is displayed in a central tondo. The hand and arm of a figure, probably a Cupid, is preserved to the right of the tondo. The person commemorated here was an elderly woman; she wears her hair in a style favored by members of the Severan dynasty, in particular Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus, and Plautilla, wife of Caracalla. Although sarcophagi were mass-produced, the distinctive features of the woman's portrait make it clear that this particular sarcophagus must have been purchased and then prepared for a specific customer.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.