Glass bowl with painted lid

Glass bowl with painted lid

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bowl (17.194.88a): Translucent blue green. Everted, knocked-off rim, with ground upper edge; narrow concave neck; sack-shaped body with side expanding downwards to rounded carination, then sloping inwards; small bottom, pushed in to form tall spike-like kick. On side above carination, two narrow wheel-abraded horizontal bands. Complete but one vertical crack from rim down side; few bubbles; soil encrustation, slight dulling, and creamy brown weathering. Lid (17.194.88b): Translucent blue green. Rim turned down and inwards with unworked inner lip; concave upper surface. Decoration in black lines on interior: woman seated to right but head turned to left with bare upper body and drapery below, flanked at bottom with flowers; objects in field to left (altar and offerings?). Intact; few bubbles; patches of creamy weathering and brilliant iridescence. Painted on the inside of the lid is a sketched drawing, possibly of the goddess Aphrodite. Similar vessels, decorated on the lid with various figures in black ink, are known principally from Cyprus.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.