Glass cameo bowl fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue with overlay in opaque white. Outsplayed rim with flat upper edge; cylindrical body with slightly convex curving side. On interior, horizontal groove immediately below rim and another at top of side, forming a slightly convex band around inside of rim; on exterior, two raised horizontal lines at junction of rim and side. Also on exterior, in relief in white, head of youthful satyr, tipped slightly backward and drinking from a rhyton held in raised proper right hand; on the right, part of a leafy spray or branch. Rim fragment with large chip at left, broken at sides and bottom; dulling, slight pitting, creamy weathering, especially on and around white overlay, and faint iridescence. Rotary grinding marks on interior.

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