Marble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portrait

Marble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portrait

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The young beardless soldier commemorated in the portrait wears a military cloak, pinned at his right shoulder. The portrait borne aloft implied the ascent of the deceased to the heavens, while Tellus and Oceanus, the Earth and Ocean, reclined below, symbolizing the regenerative cycles of life. The central scene is framed at either end by the embracing figures of winged Eros and of Psyche, personification of the human soul.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portraitMarble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portraitMarble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portraitMarble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portraitMarble sarcophagus with flying erotes holding a clipeus portrait

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.