Amber disk with a nereid riding a triton

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Valued for its rarity and richness, amber was an increasingly favored precious material from the time of the emperor Nero, when it became more widely available. The elder Pliny, in his Natural History, tells us that amber was imported from the Baltic coast of Germany. The style of the carving and iconography of this piece look back to Hellenistic art. The disk preserves the remains of silver pins that were part of a handle on either side of the Nereid. It likely served as a lid, possibly for a small pyxis (box).

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