Bronze oinochoe (jug) and handle attachment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This type of jug, with sharply pronounced shoulder and beak spout, is often found with a basin or patera with a figural handle, objects that may have been used in a hand-washing ritual. The type began to appear in Etruscan tombs as early as the first quarter of the fifth century B.C. and remained popular until the late fourth century B.C. This example has a ram's head at the upper attachment and a plaque with a fallen warrior at the bottom one. The adjacent plaque (43.11.5) comes from a similar piece.

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