Terracotta jug
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This jug, the jar (2004.363.2), and the kernos (2004.363.1) displayed nearby, were found together in 1829 on Melos by the British naval captain Richard Copeland. In 1857 his widow gave the objects to Eton College in Windsor, England, where they remained until 1996, when they were lent to The Met. The group was purchased by the Museum in 2004. Of the three, the kernos is the most intriguing and complex. Although kernoi were used in widely disparate regions during the prehistoric period, particularly impressive examples have come to light in the Cyclades, and this is one of the largest, most elaborate and elegant kernoi to have survived. The twenty-five flask-like containers around the central bowl were probably used to hold offerings of seeds, grain, flowers, fruit, or liquids. The painted decoration of the jar is similar to that of the kernos, with rows of alternating narrow and broad chevrons and designs in dark glaze over a white slip. The jug is more extensively decorated with comparable motifs. All three vessels represent Cycladic pottery at its most precise and accomplished, and presumably they came from the same tomb, possibly at Phylakopi, the primary Cycladic settlement on the island.
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.