Marble statue of a woman

Marble statue of a woman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This large figure probably was part of a group of funerary statues that were placed within a deep, covered niche. The back of the drapery is not carefully finished as it would not have been visible. The production of such elaborate grave monuments with large-scale statues came to an end in Attica in 317 or 307 B.C. when Demetrios of Phaleron, the governor of Athens, issued a law prohibiting ostentatious display by wealthy families.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.