Glass jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep turquoise blue; handle, trail, and base ring in semi-opaque yellowish white; opaque brick red streaks in rim. Rim, folded over and in, and smoothed into side of flaring mouth; cylindrical neck, expanding downwards and joining imperceptibly with bulbous body, tapering to applied base ring; small, pushed-in bottom with pontil scar; three-ribbed strap handle attached with long, downward fins at edges to upper body, drawn up and outwards in a curve, then turned in and trailed onto underside of mouth over trail decoration, with a hollow loop above, and ending on lip of rim. Trail wound horizontally 1½ times around underside of mouth, then dropped in a fine trail down neck, and then wound horizontally once in a thicker trail around lower neck. Intact, but some small internal cracks in body; many bubbles and a few inclusions; dulling, pitting, faint iridescence, and some soil encrustation, with two loose balls of soil inside.

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