The Metropolitan Museum of Art, commonly referred to as the MET, is one of the largest and most prestigious art museums in the world. Located in New York City, it houses an extensive collection that spans over 5,000 years of art from various cultures and time periods. It holds the title of being the largest museum globally by floor space and the largest one in the Americas. In 2023 it welcomed 5.46 million visitors making it the most popular museum, in the United States and the fourth most visited one worldwide.

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.