Marble mask of Pan

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The remains of two horns set in the bristling hair identify this bearded mask as that of Pan, the rustic goat god, who was venerated all over the Greek and Roman world as an uncivilized power of nature. His cult originated among the herdsmen of Arcadia, a wild mountainous region of Greece, but by the time this decorative mask was produced, Pan had become primarily a denizen of private villas, where on wall paintings and in garden sculpture, he disported with Dionysus and his band of satyrs and maenads.

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