Terracotta comic mask

Period:: Early Hellenistic

Date:: late 4th–early 3rd century B.C.

Culture:: Greek, Cypriot

Medium:: Terracotta; mold-made

Dimensions:: H. 1 7/8 in. (4.8 cm)

Classification:: Terracottas

Credit Line:: The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76

Accession Number:: 74.51.1520

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 161

The mask corresponds to one of the types of a youth in so-called New Comedy at the end of the fourth century B.C. The two small holes at the top indicate that the piece was probably suspended.

Cesnola, Luigi Palma di. 1894. A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Vol. 2. pl. XXVI.208, Boston: James R. Osgood and Company.

Myres, John L. 1914. Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus. no. 2342, p. 362, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Karageorghis, Vassos, Gloria Merker, and Joan R. Mertens. 2016. The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Terracottas. no. 401, p. 236, Online Publication, [CD-Rom 2004], New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Timelines
Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.

The Cesnola Collection of Cypriot Art: Terracottas

Department

Greek and Roman Art (17,341)

Object Type / Material

Geographic Location