Glass plaque with sphinx

Glass plaque with sphinx

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, backed with opaque light blue. Rectangular flat plaque, with major axis horizontal; beveled edges, grozed at back; flat underside. Decoration in relief: seated winged sphinx in profile facing right, wearing diadem on head, with long wing extending over back and curling up at tip and long curling tail. On back, undecorated layer of light blue. Broken and repaired, complete except for chip in undreside; dulling, iridescence, and thin whitish weathering. Made in the same mold as 81.10.156 and 17.194.563. These three relief plaques, decorated with the figure of a crouching sphinx, were all made in the same mold. They probably formed part of the inlay decoration to a piece of furniture.

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.