Glass beaker

Glass beaker

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with greenish tinge. Uneven ground rim; cylindrical body with straight sides tapering slightly downwards; slightly pushed-in bottom. Wheel-cut decoration comprising four broad, horizontal grooves irregularly spaced down sides, with the uppermost just below rim. Intact; pinprick bubbles; dulling, pitting, and iridescence, with many patches of thick creamy, enamel-like weathering on exterior, and interior covered with soil and limy encrustation. Cylindrical yellowish beaker with four incised lines around body.


Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.