Marble portrait head of Antinoos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This head is almost certainly from a monumental statue of Antinoos. Characteristically, the head is turned slightly to the left and gazes downward, the tousled hair hanging long in the back. Worship of the deified Antinoos, the favorite of the Roman emperor Hadrian, flourished in the East, especially in his homeland, Bithynia. The cult spread through the initiatives of private associations and the benefactions of the upper classes, which sought to gain favor with the emperor. It may also have achieved widespread popularity because Antinoos was a man of the people who did not have official or imperial status yet became a god.

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