Silver bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The foliate decoration on the exterior of this shallow bowl is similar to that on a number of vessels belonging to silver hoards found in Gaul and Germany, buried as a result of the threat of barbarian raids from across the Rhine in the mid-third century A.D. This bowl, however, has no recorded provenance and for a long time was considered to be of Parthian (Iranian) origin. It thus demonstrates the universal nature of luxury art, which in later Roman times spread eastward through Iran to Central Asia and China.

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