iThe Metropolitan Museum of ArtUpper East Side
Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient Greece
Presents more than 180 exceptional works exploring art and identity beyond ancient Greece.
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Preview: written before the show opened
For more than two decades, a bronze griffin's head greeted visitors at the entrance to The Met's Greek and Roman galleries. In 2025 the Met returned it to Greece, after research showed it had left the Olympia museum illegitimately in the 1930s. Now it's back on loan from Olympia, shown for the first time beside two related griffin heads. Like most people who leave New York, it only comes back to visit.
Around it are more than 180 objects from the eighth to the early fifth century BCE, when Greeks traded, settled and fought across the Mediterranean. You move region by region, from West Asia and Egypt to Italy, Spain and the Black Sea, and each section also shows how Greek artists pictured the people they met there.
Curator Seán Hemingway pitches it at people who think Greek art peaks with the Parthenon. It's in Gallery 199 at The Met Fifth Avenue and free with Museum admission. Members get preview days, December 17 to 19.
Editor's pick
The Olympia griffin head, repatriated in 2025, is back on loan beside two related heads. Around it, more than 180 objects follow Greek art to southern Italy, Iberia and Susa, with the Ugento Zeus in the US for the first time.
Look for
Herakles in the sun god's cauldron
A drinking cup lent by the Vatican Museums shows Herakles sailing west across the sea inside the enormous cauldron of the sun god Helios.
The Zeus from Ugento
A bronze statue of Zeus found in southern Italy, the signature work of the Archaeological Museum of Taranto, shown in the United States for the first time.
Three griffin heads
The cauldron griffin from Olympia, once a fixture of The Met's own galleries, sits beside two related griffin heads for the first time.
An Iberian sphinx and lion
Iberian sculptures of a sphinx and a lion, lent from Albacete and Córdoba, show Greek-style creatures made by local artists in Spain.
The Susa weight
An enormous Greek bronze weight, found on the Persian royal acropolis at Susa and lent by the Louvre.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
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Image credits
9
- Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient GreeceCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Collection in Focus: Modern European CurrentsPhoto: Ariel Ione Williams, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to NowCourtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
- Taryn Simon | Father Country I Do Love YouCourtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
- The Metropolitan Museum of ArtHugo Schneider, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Neue Galerie New YorkFrancesca.hyanna19 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumAjay Suresh, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design MuseumEpicgenius, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- American Museum of Natural HistoryIngfbruno, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0