Glass bowl with cut decoration

Glass bowl with cut decoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless. Uneven, slightly inverted, ground rim; hemispherical body; slightly flattened but round bottom. Wheel-cut decoration on exterior: immediately below rim band of three parallel horizontal lines, the central one being broader than the two flanking lines; on body, continuous frieze of four standing figures, alternating with vertical columns: each figure faces front with head turned in profile to left, wearing tunic with vertical stripes and holding long-stemmed plants in both hands outstretched to either side, and the columns are rendered with three vertical grooves, with capitals and bases represented by two horizontal grooves; on bottom, a rosette or star with eight radiating lines. Intact; very few bubbles; dulling, iridescence, and patches of limy weathering. A number of bowls with very similar cut decoration are known from the Rhineland. As exemplified here, some of these show figures engaged in a form of pagan procession or dance, but others have Christian associations. These four figures carry bunches of grapes and raised objects, possibly long tapers or castanets, and each is flanked by stylized columns.

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.