Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Meander border framed by ridges, above a Dionysiac scene with trees, maenads, and saytrs. Mold-made bowls from Boeotia are often decorated in relief with Homeric themes and subjects drawn from Classical Greek tragedy. Although this bowl depicts a bucolic Dionysiac revel, its shape and the egg and dart wreath surrounding its foot suggest it too was made in Boeotia. The relief on the base is badly worn, but it could portray either Dionysos or a satyr crowned with grape leaves, as either would make a suitable counterpart to the primary figural scene on the bowl.

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