Glass bowl with fluted decoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent honey brown. Outsplayed rounded rim; concave neck; deep convex side tapering slightly downward to slightly uneven flat bottom. On interior, a single horizontal groove below rim; on exterior, a band of two broad horizontal grooves around lower part of neck; a series of sixty-five shallow-cut vertical flutes on side extending from neck to bottom; below this another band of two narrow horizontal grooves forming concentric circles around edge of bottom. Broken and repaired, with two large and several small holes in body; dulling, slight pitting, and white iridescent weathering. Rotary grinding marks on interior, around neck, and on bottom on exterior. The shape and decoration on this bowl imitate Hellenistic silverwork. The star-shaped pattern on the bottom became a common motif on terracotta Megarian bowls in the first century B.C.

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