Limestone votary of a bearded male with a wreath

Limestone votary of a bearded male with a wreath

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This over-lifesize figure depicts a bearded man making an offering. He wears an ornate wreath of ivy leaves, flowers, and laurel sprays, and holds a libation bowl (phiale) in his right hand and a box and a small branch in his left. He wears a chiton and has a himation draped over his left shoulder—attire that in classical Greece would have been more appropriate for a woman, since men were usually represented in heroic or athletic nudity. The right forearm of the statue is modern.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone votary of a bearded male with a wreathLimestone votary of a bearded male with a wreathLimestone votary of a bearded male with a wreathLimestone votary of a bearded male with a wreathLimestone votary of a bearded male with a wreath

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.