Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Affecter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Winged man between onlookers Winged male figures that are distinct from Hermes appear quite frequently in Attic art of the mid-sixth century B.C. Without inscriptions they are difficult to identify. In all of Greek art, the distinction between the human and the divine, the tangible and intangible, is elusive. Although we do not know his name, this figure surely moves between various orders of reality.


Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

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.