Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)

Painter of Würzburg 487

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Interior, Eros at a herm Exterior, obverse and reverse, banqueters The earliest herms were square stone pillars terminating in a bearded head of Hermes, the god of boundaries. They were introduced in Athens about 520 B.C by Hipparchos, the son of the tyrant Peisistratos, to mark points midway between the various Attic villages and the Athenian Agora. Soon herms stood before private houses and sanctuaries, as well.

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