Marble statue of Aphrodite crouching and arranging her hair

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek statue of the late 2nd century B.C. In this small-scale statue, a complex crouching pose has been compressed into a two-dimensional composition. It is a decorative work based on a famous large, fully three-dimensional statue of Aphrodite shown crouching at her bath that was created in the third century b.c. In the late Hellenistic period, figures such as this were designed to be seen from only one or two vantage points. They fit perfectly between columns in peristyle court or garden settings.

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