Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)

Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This vase is representative of the mastery achieved by Corinthian artists of the seventh century B.C. There is utmost precision in both the potting and the execution of the scale pattern.


Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)Terracotta pointed aryballos (oil flask)

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.