Glass jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue-green; handle in same color. Rim folded out, round, and in, with beveled upper surface; cylindrical neck, with tooling indent around the base; almost horizontal shoulder; squat, bulbous body, curving in at base; hollow base ring, outsplayed on one side; shallow, pushed-in bottom; two-ribbed handle applied to shoulder, with straight tooling indent across back of pad and two claws projecting down on front, drawn up and outwards, then turned in horizontally, and pressed onto side of rim and top of neck, with vertical projecting loop as a thumb rest above rim. Intact; some pinprick bubbles and blowing striations; slight dulling, thick creamy brown weathering, and iridescence.

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