Glass mosaic bead

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque brick red ground; details in opaque white and pale yellow, and translucent blue. Globular, slightly flattened at top and bottom; vertical hole; made from four sections pressed together. Each section decorated with same design: central square in blue with leaf-shaped white overlay marked with eight-armed star in blue, surrounded by irregular splashes of yellow on red ground. Intact; slight pitting and faint weathering. The piece is perhaps related to the face beads that are also displayed here.

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