Glass plaque fragment

Glass plaque fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep honey brown and opaque light blue. Rectangular flat plaque, with major axis vertical; beveled upper edges, grozed at top and on back surface. Decoration in high relief: upper part of a draped female, facing right, hair tied with long, flowing headband, holding tall slender thyrsus in outstretched proper left hand. On back, thick undecorated layer of brown. Broken and missing lower part of plaque, with only small part of left edge remaining; dulling and slight pitting of upper surface; iridescence and creamy white weathering on back.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.