Terracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreath

Terracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreath

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Weight on left leg, right knee bent. Left arm supports an open casket with legs, from which a fillet is drawn across the waist by the raised right hand (right hand may never have been fully rendered). Peplos is open down right side; hem of knee-length overfold is drawn up toward left. Head type is characteristic of this group - long wide neck with small face, elaborate wig. This wig has four rows of braid above forehead, with coiled plaits over ears. High, wide polos. High, splaying, trapezoidal base.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreathTerracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreathTerracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreathTerracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreathTerracotta statuette of a standing woman with a basket and wreath

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.