Terracotta hydria (water jar)

Leagros Group

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

On the body, Achilles and Ajax playing board game at Troy On the shoulder, chariot departing The scene on the body depicts one of the most popular subjects in Greek art, mainly vase-painting, between about 540 and 480 B.C. Over 150 occurrences are known. Remarkably, the original composition survives on an amphora in the Vatican Museums. The artist was Exekias, the potter and painter whose work represents the height of black-figure painting. In this variant, the painter has placed Athena stage center as the two primary Greek heroes of the Trojan War while away their time playing a game in which pieces are moved according to the roll of dice.

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