Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This finely made bowl is decorated in relief with a lesbian-leaf molding (a vegetal motif named for the island of Lesbos) banded by a row of small beads and a raised ridge. Below, meanders serve as a backdrop to a procession of Erotes, who step between jeweled long petals of alternating lengths that surround an exceptionally ornate triple rosette foot-medallion. Notable on this bowl are the long petals, which are normally of uniform length, and the highly unusual pairing of this ornament with figural decoration. Although it is believed that the long petal motif was introduced to mold-made ceramics around 165 B.C. by Corinthian potters, the particular style of the lesbian-leaf molding on this bowl associates it with Ionian workshops in Asia Minor where it appears to have been a popular variant.

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