Glass bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless. Vertical rim, knocked off and ground; shallow body curving in to flat bottom. Wheel-cut decoration on exterior: below rim, band of 23 horizontal oval facets, alternating with and flanked above and below by pairs of smaller, rice-shaped grooves; occupying most of side, zone of four overlapping rows of vertical facets, becoming progressively thinner towards the bottom; on bottom, hexagon, outlined with a single, long groove on each side and containing a pattern of six pentagonal facets around a central pentagonal facet. Broken and repaired with several large cracks and one small area of fill; pinprick bubbles; small patches of limy encrustation, slight dulling, and iridescent weathering, mainly within facets.

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