Glass cameo: head of Augustus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep amber brown, colorless, and colorless with a bluish tinge. Oval disk in two layers of varying thickness with flat back, ground edge, and gently sloping upper surface; slight undercutting around edge to head; fused to disk, a carved head in high relief. Head of beardless man in three-quarter view to right, wearing a laurel wreath; hair in flowing locks over forehead and to front of proper right ear, eyebrows with parting between bridge of nose, large almond-shaped eyes with small, round pupils, pointed nose, small mouth with pursed lips, and prominent chin. Head intact; disk with broken off chip at bottom right; pinprick bubbles in head; larger bubbles in disk; very little weathering but some dulling on disk.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art