Bronze tripod

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The city of Vulci was famous in antiquity for its production of luxury bronzes. One popular type of item was the tripod, an elaborate stand to support either a cauldron or a brazier. Tripods were produced at Vulci for about seventy years, from about 540 to 470 B.C. This example is elaborately decorated with lion's-paw feet surmounting frogs, wild beasts attacking their prey on the arches above elegant palmette motifs, and a pair of mythical subjects at the top of each of the vertical rods. These depict the divine twins Castur and Pultuce (Greek: Kastor and Polydeukes), Hercle (Greek: Herakles) and his protectress, the goddess Menrva (Greek: Athena), and two satyrs. The three subjects do not have any obvious connections to one another. Stylistically, the execution of these small figures is similar to that of the related depictions of the divine twins on the pair of bronze volute handles (64.11.4a, b) in a nearby case.

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