Terracotta neck-amphora (jar)

Ptoon Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Obverse, banqueting scene, possibly Dionysos and Ariadne Reverse, Herakles and Acheloös By the second quarter of the sixth century B.C., figural subjects and particularly mythological motifs predominated over animal friezes on Attic vases. The man-headed bull on the reverse identifies the scene as Herakles subduing the river-god Acheloös. The banquet on the obverse may depict the god of wine, Dionysos, with Ariadne, a daughter of King Minos of Crete. Dionysos married her after she was abandoned by the Athenian hero Theseus.

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