Glass jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep cobalt blue; handle, trail, and base ring colorless with green tinge. Rim partially folded over and in, partially rounded; flaring mouth; cylindrical neck, with concave profile; sloping shoulder; piriform body, tapering to applied base ring, flattened on bottom edge; small, pushed-in bottom with pontil scar; two-ribbed strap handle attached with downward fins to shoulder, drawn up and outwards in a curve, then turned in and trailed onto underside of mouth over trail decoration and lip of rim, with a hollow loop above as thumb-rest. Thick trail wound horizontally 1½ times around underside of mouth, then dropped in a fine trail down neck, and then wound 1½ times around neck. Intact, but one internal crack in rim and neck; many bubbles and a few inclusions; dulling, iridescence, creamy weathering, and some soil encrustation. Opaque blue with yellow handle and plastic thread decoration.

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