Glass square jar

Glass square jar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with pale greenish tinge and purple streak in rim. Tubular everted rim, folded over and in to edge of wide, oval mouth; cylindrical neck; narrow horizontal shoulder; square body with vertical sides but rounded sloping corners at top; square bottom with low kick and pontil scar. On bottom, four small circles with central dots at corners, flanking two concentric circles around a small knob at center, all in raised relief. Intact; a few bubbles, some large; dulling and faint iridescence on exterior, reddish brown weathering and iridescence on interior.

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.