Terracotta bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The bowl is a typical example of plain Roman fineware pottery made at Arretium (modern Arezzo) in northern Italy. The vessels were mass produced and exported widely throughout the Roman world. Associated in particular with forts and other military sites, Arretine pottery was clearly very popular with soldiers serving on the frontiers of the Empire in northern Europe during the Julio-Claudian period. This bowl has in the center of the base a maker’s stamp in the shape of a footprint; it reads CORNELI (of Cornelius).

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