Glass spoon

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green. Fire-rounded, thick, uneven rim, forming end of handle; long hollow neck, tooled in around base, forming handle; body shaped into bowl of spoon with angular bottom and tubular edge. Intact, but small weathered chips in bottom edge of bowl; some elongated bubbles in neck; slight dulling and pitting, and faint weathering on exterior, some soil encrustation and iridescent weathering on interior. This spoon, which is said to have been found near the Sea of Galilee, was made from a single blown tube that was then tooled to shape the bowl and handle. Although rare, such glass spoons were probably produced throughout the Roman period, and they persisted even into Islamic times.

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