Glass gold-band mosaic bottle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, honey brown, and bluish green, colorless encasing gold leaf, and opaque white (?). Everted, horizontal rim with rounded outer lip; cylindrical neck; sloping shoulder; carinated body with straight side above carination and convex curving side below; slightly concave bottom. Gold-band mosaic pattern formed from a single serpentine length of layered canes formed in the following order: blue, colorless with gold leaf, green, and thin stripes of white; the length is wound three times round body, being fused together across bottom. A single fine horizontal line incised on upper surface of rim near outer edge; a band of two grooves flanking a raised line at junction of shoulder and side; and another band of two grooves flanking a raised line at junction of side and bottom. Intact, except for one weathered chip in rim and two deep weathered chips in side of body; many pinprick bubbles; dulling, pitting, and creamy brown weathering with brilliant iridescence. Rotary grinding marks on exterior.

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