Mosaic glass inlay

Mosaic glass inlay

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque yellow ground; decoration in opaque white and red, and translucent purple and turquoise blue. Square, flat plaque with uneven back. Symmetrical four-petaled rosette in blue, white and red, outlined in purple, each leaf pointing towards a corner of the plaque. Intact; upper side ground and polished; pitted surface bubbles. Blue, red, and gray on yellow ground.


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.