Bronze hydria (water jar)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of the earliest of this kind of Archaic Greek bronze hydriae to have survived. The handles are cast. Portions of the hammered bronze body are a modern restoration. The three handles are particularly decorative, especially for this early period. The vertical handle has a pair of lion heads at the top whose features are rendered with a combination of volumetric modeling and chasing. A woman's head, shown from the neck up, appears at the bottom. Six long, hatched braids frame her face on both sides and she wears a headdress known as a polos, on top of her head. The polos typically is worn by goddesses. Two half-spools extend perpendicularly from the woman's head on both sides, each ornamented with pairs of chased lines. The strap of the handle is covered with chased geometric patterns. The side handles have swan heads with long, rounded beaks at the outer edges. The straps of the handles and the half-spools that extend perpendicularly from the swan heads are ribbed with pairs of chased lines, as on the vertical handle.

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