Glass network mosaic bowl with base ring

Glass network mosaic bowl with base ring

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with opaque yellow. Vertical rim with ground, inward-sloping edge; convex curving side tapering downwards to slightly convex bottom; outsplayed base ring with thick rounded edge, applied as a coil with join down one side. Network mosaic pattern formed from lengths of three canes laid side by side and wound round in a spiral to form body, ending on the bottom; each cane wound spirally with two parallel yellow threads; another cane also wound spirally with a double yellow thread is attached as rim; the base ring is streaked with yellow threads. Intact, but with a few internal cracks; some pinprick and a few larger bubbles; dulling, pitting, and faint iridescence. Similar glass bowls have been recovered from the Antikythera shipwreck, located south of the Peloponnese. This first underwater excavation in Mediterranean waters was undertaken with the assistance of sponge divers in 1900. The ship is thought to have been heading west when it sank sometime in the second quarter of the first century B.C. with a large cargo of terracotta amphorae, glass vessels, and large-scale sculptures of bronze and marble.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass network mosaic bowl with base ringGlass network mosaic bowl with base ringGlass network mosaic bowl with base ringGlass network mosaic bowl with base ringGlass network mosaic bowl with base ring

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.