Marble pillar with Neo-Attic reliefs

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A fine example of classicizing art, this marble pillar bears on all four sides reliefs in the Neo-Attic style. The themes are drawn from the world of Dionysus. A flowering acanthus plant carved in low relief occupies one of the long sides, while on the other, in higher relief, two female figures with billowing garments surmount a Silenus herm. Their attributes identify them as Horae, the personifications of the Seasons. At the top is summer holding a garland in one hand and a sheaf of wheat in the other. At the bottom, autumn carries pomegranates and bunches of grapes in the fold of her himation, while a third figure, now missing, most probably represented spring. Both short sides are decorated with a thyrsos, the god’s characteristic staff. This work is notable for its unusual iconography. Decorative relief pillars are predominately adorned by elaborate trailing vegetation motifs; human figures and animals, if present, play only a secondary role in the composition. Mythological scenes as attested here are rare.

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