Glass beaker with facet-cut decoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with light green tinge. Thin, outsplayed, knocked-off rim; funnel-shaped body, tapering in at base; broad, low, conical, outsplayed foot, made from a separate paraison with a ground outer edge. On upper body, two fine horizontal lines; below, broad band of four overlapping rice-shaped vertical facets, arranged in a slight irregular pattern. Broken on one side of rim with part missing; pinprick bubbles; dulling, pitting, patches of brilliant iridescence, and creamy brown weathering. Similar beakers have been excavated in Denmark, Germany, Egypt, and Afghanistan. The type must have been made at several localities around the Mediterranean.

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