N.C. Art Museum– Part Three

N.C. Art Museum– Part Three June 11, 2024

There is quite a lot of funerary art from the Roman and Greek antiquity, and related statues as well.   For instance here is  Herakles/Hercules usually depicted with a club and/or a animal skin from one of the labors he accomplished.

Notice how he shows up on this burial box as well…

Here’s a very elaborate tomb for an elite Roman man and his wife…

In the Republic period and into the first century A.D. Romans practiced cremation and so did not have sarcophagi, but the eastern influence led to such practices as the Empire spread east.  It is interesting to see how women are depicted in funerary art, but also beloved slaves.

Funeral urns can be quite moving, like this one where a young woman is mourning an old man, perhaps here father, who is buried in a stone urn….

Minerva was a favorite goddess, often depicted in visual art but here as a bronze statue….

Greek urns (not for burial purposes) were of course quite famous and often copied, with their black and orange colors and depictions of ancient life.

This is Helios, who rode his chariot across the sky bringing light from east to west.  Its a Roman statue from the 2nd or 3rd century B.C.


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