Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Mosaic Panel with Preparations for a Feast
North African (Carthage, Tunisia)
Not on view
A diverse group of men carry daily objects such as table utensils, wine carafes, and food. Depicting preparations for a feast, such images decorated dining rooms throughout North Africa. Scenes like this one conveyed the status and privilege of elite patrons.
Mosaics adorned the floors of homes in North Africa before the Roman conquest in the second century bce through the late antique period and possibly later. Examples of floor mosaics survive in greater numbers in the North African provinces than anywhere else in the Roman Empire, and the skills of North African mosaicists were highly prized throughout the world.
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