Cameo-glass cup fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue with overlay in opaque white. Vertical rim with top edge ground flat; narrow sloping collar below rim on exterior; cylindrical body with slightly convex curving side. On interior, two deep horizontal grooves below rim; on exterior, below plain collar in relief naked male figure in white, facing right, with proper left leg raised and proper right arm also raised with hand near mouth; above his head to right is a hanging leaf; behind him to left is a squared plinth on which stands a small herm of Silenus, naked, armless, and ithyphallic, in profile to right, flanked to either side by leafy sprays. The figure may be identified as a dancing satyr. Rim fragment with chips and cracks, broken at sides and bottom; dulling, slight pitting, whitish weathering on exterior, and faint iridescence. Rotary grinding marks on interior. The fragment depicts a figure facing right and a small statue of Priapus on a pedestal.

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