Glass jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue; handle in translucent honey brown; blobs in opaque white and yellow. Rim folded out, round, and in; cylindrical neck, expanding slightly downwards; squat globular body; low concave bottom; three-ribbed strap handle applied to upper body, drawn up almost vertically, then turned in horizontally, and trailed onto neck and underside of rim. Surface covered with round and elongated blobs. Body intact, but crack and one weathered break in lower part of handle; some pinprick and elongated bubbles; slight pitting and weathering, with some soil encrustation around top of handle. Blown vessels with applied blobs of differently colored, marvered glass were very fashionable in the Julio-Claudian and Early Flavian periods. Some examples have been found in Pompeii. The vivid patterns can be seen as an attempt by glass blowers to imitate the polychrome effects of marbled cast glass.

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