Glass beaker with snake-thread decoration

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with green tinge; trails in same color. Outsplayed, uneven, knocked-off rim; vertical side to body, then tapering to form hollow stem; low foot, with rounded, tubular edge, made by folding; pushed-in bottom with domed kick at center and pontil mark. On body, side divided into four vertical panels, each containing a snake-thread trail (three of nine loops, one of eight) with a trailing-off tail below, all tooled flat with cross-hatch pattern; between panels, a slender vertical trail applied to lower body, drawn up, tooled to form horizontal ribs, then folded down over ribs as a plain trail. Intact; some pinprick bubbles; dulling, creamy weathering, and iridescence on exterior, soil encrustation and thicker black and brown weathering on interior. After the beaker had been blown, decoration in the form of snakes was added with molten threads of glass. Many beakers of this type have been found in northern France.

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