Glass beaker
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Colorless with green tinge. Unworked, knocked-off rim with slight bulge below; cylindrical body with vertical sides; concave undercurve and projecting rounded base ring; flat bottom. Three vertical mold seams run down sides from bulge to top of undercurve, with a separate cup-shaped base section. On body, two fine wheel-abraded horizontal lines on plain band at top of body; eight elongated vertical panels round sides with decoration in high relief: four downward-facing dolphins with shells in their mouth, alternating with four set of objects - a crescent, a four-lobed rosette, a shell, and a six-lobed rosette - arranged vertically; on undercurve, two rows of indented bosses, offset from each other (eighteen bosses in each row); on bottom, a single indented circle surrounding a central hollow with raised dot. Intact, except for slight chipping and cracking around rim; many bubbles; slight dulling, faint irisdescence, and patches of brownish weathering. The unique decoration on this beaker is probably meant to recall the circus games, for the Circus Maximus in Rome had lap-counters in the shape of a row of dolphins that allowed spectators to follow the course of a chariot race.
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.