Glass mosaic inlay

Glass mosaic inlay

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent light blue and opaque white. Thin narrow strip. Continuous guilloche or wave pattern. Broken and repaired; upper side ground and polished; pitted surface bubbles, dulling and faint weathering on edges and back The inlay is made from two sections cut from the same cane of mosaic glass, with decoration appearing in mirror image. Bluish backed on colorless, maeander pattern in white.


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.