Glass cameo fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue and opaque light blue. Flat plaque or inlay, decorated with an upper layer carved out in relief; smooth, flat back. On cobalt blue ground, a fish in profile facing left, with fins, scales, gills, eye, mouth carved as shallow cuts in surface of the upper opaque light blue layer; above fish, bottom edge of a second relief, perhaps another fish. Bottom straight edge, irregular breaks on sides and top; broken into two fragments and repaired; very few bubbles; dulling, limy weathering, and faint iridescence.

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