Marble head of Athena: The so-called Athena Medici

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a Greek statue of ca. 430 B.C. attributed to Pheidias This head is from a fine Roman copy of an over-life-sized statue of the goddess Athena which has long been attributed to Pheidias, the most famous artist of that period. The eyes were once inset with colored stones. The head retains part of the frontlet and neck guard of an Attic helmet that was originally completed in wood and gilded. This combination of marble and wood, whereby the drapery and attributes such as the helmet were worked in wood and gilded while the flesh parts were carved in marble, is known as the acrolithic technique. It imitated the appearance of immensely valuable gold and ivory statues, such as the great Athena Parthenos that stood inside the Parthenon in Athens and the colossal seated statue of Zeus at Olympia.

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