Part of the marble stele (grave marker) of Kalliades

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A fleeing Gorgon decorates this tapering, predella-looking slab, part of the grave stele of Kalliades, as we learn from the inscription carved in three lines from left to right below the Gorgon’s left knee: "Kalliades, son of Thoutimides". The Gorgon, dressed in a short chiton, spreads her wings wide and moves her arms and legs forcefully as she rushes through air. Her head and upper torso are rendered frontally, while her lower torso and legs are shown in profile and bent at the knees in the so-called "knie-lauf" schema, an iconographic convention frequently employed in Archaic Art to denote speed. Mythological creatures like gorgons and sphinxes often functioned as apotropaic images that protected the grave.

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