Terracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boy

Terracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boy

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The child sits under a grape arbor holding an oinochoe in his left hand, a cake and cornucopia in his right. The clearly Dionysiac iconography connects the vase with the festival of the Anthesteria, the new wine, in which children participated.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boyTerracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boyTerracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boyTerracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boyTerracotta oinochoe (jug) with a seated boy

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.