Brick with guilloche design

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Assyrian palaces were originally decorated with bright colors and elaborate patterns. Sadly, little of this polychromy survives. Small amounts of pigment remain visible on some reliefs but rarely on ivories, while images in art can also give some impression of textiles that have not survived. Perhaps the best sources for polychromy in the palaces are fragments of painted and glazed ceramic architectural elements. This six-sided brick consisting of two joined fragments provides an example in color of a guilloche pattern found in much Assyrian art. Painted and glazed brickwork is a major category in ancient Near Eastern art. Some of the most spectacular examples can be seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, and at the palace of the Achaemenid Persian king Darius I at Susa.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.

Metropolitan Museum of Art