Glass compound eye bead

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Semi-opaque turquoise blue ground; additions in opaque white and translucent cobalt blue. Squat spherical shape with rounded ends to large vertical hole. Staggered pattern of six white disks, each with rosette of seven eyes in white and blue, but with one disks having only six eyes. Intact; dulling, some pitting, and faint creamy iridescent weathering. Sea blue bead with yellow spots, in which are groups of blue spots.

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