Glass bracelet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue. Open circular band; round in section, tapering towards ends. Intact but broken, weathered ends; elongated bubbles; dulling, pitting, and patches of creamy weathering and iridescence. Most ancient glass bracelets are closed circles—for the obvious reason that they were much stronger and less likely to break than open ones such as this example. The few parallels that are known include a pair of bracelets in the Lydian Treasure that are decorated with gold lion's-head terminals and strung with a gold chain. It is very likely that this bracelet, too, had decorative finials.

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