Objects from the cradle of Western civilization, featuring pottery, sculptures, and other creations from Ancient Greece. These artifacts highlight the Greeks’ contributions to art, philosophy, and democracy during their golden age.
This is no ordinary statue — it is a 19th-century plaster cast of one of the most important surviving examples of Archaic Greek sculpture: the famous “Kore of Samos,” often still called the “Hera of Samos.”
This marble omphalos from Delphi is one of the most powerful surviving symbols of ancient Greek religion. Its rounded, almost beehive-like form represents the omphalos, or “navel,” the point the ancient Greeks identified as the center of the world.
This marble gable figure once formed part of the sculptural decoration of the Hieron in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace.
A fragmentary draped marble statue that preserves the torso of a standing female figure, wrapped in deeply carved layers of drapery. Although the head, arms, lower legs, and feet are missing, the surviving body still gives a strong impression of elegance and dignity.
A marble torso from Delos that preserves only part of a female figure, yet still conveys much of the statue’s original impact. The soft modeling of the abdomen, hips, and thighs gives the body a natural, sensuous presence..
A marble grave statue that turns the quiet pose of a female servant into the whole meaning of the work. Made in Attica, Greece, around 330–320 BC.
Behold an Attic funerary statue that turns a simple gesture into the whole emotional center of the work. Dated to about 360 BCE, it shows a young mourning girl with her head resting on her hand.
This marble head belonged to a sphinx that crowned the roof of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, probably at one of the temple’s corners, and is usually dated to about 500–490 BCE.
This Attic red-figure kylix, attributed to Douris and dated to about 470 BCE, turns a drinking vessel into a carefully staged image of human encounter.
Made in Apulia around 340–320 BCE, this bull’s head rhyton shows how inventive South Italian pottery could be in the late Classical period. The vessel combines an animal-shaped form with red-figure decoration and added paint.
Carved in Pentelic marble around AD 160–170, this powerful life-size bull once formed part of the great nymphaeum dedicated by Appia Annia Regilla in the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia.
Few grave monuments from classical Athens are as quietly affecting as the Grave Stele of Mnesarete. Carved in Attica around 380 BCE, the relief shows a young woman seated in composed sorrow.