Glass jar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless; trails and base in translucent cobalt blue. Everted rim, folded over and in, pressed flat on upper surface and with beveled outer edge; broad horizontal mouth; funnel-shaped neck; broad sloping shoulder; bulbous body, tapering downwards; solid base pad, applied as a coil and flattened underneath, with pontil scar. One fine trail wound round in a spiral on underside of mouth; a thick trail wound round from left to right in zigzag between outer edge of shoulder and rim, forming openwork collar, with overlap extending for a single upward section; another thick trail wound around lower body as a continuous, irregular zigzag. Intact, but internal cracks running around body; pinprick and larger bubbles; pitting, dulling, iridescence, and enamel-like brownish weathering.

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