Marble two-sided relief

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The peristyle gardens of Roman houses and villas were filled with decorative marble reliefs such as this one. The masks of a young maenad and a bearded silenus are carved on one side in high relief. A shepherd’s crook, known in antiquity as a pedum, and two cymbals rest between them. Dionysiac cult objects and theatrical masks are often depicted on similar marble ornaments found in Pompeii, where they were suspended between the columns of the peristyle or set on tall pillars around the garden. Other themes, however, are also represented; on the other side of this piece, in low relief, a ketos, or sea monster, rides atop the waves.

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