Glass bowl fragment with later inscription

Glass bowl fragment with later inscription

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fragment has been shown by scientific analysis and examination to be ancient. It is probably part of a bowl or globular bottle that was decorated with linear engraving in antiquity. However, the inscription and floral decoration appear to be modern additions. The inscription is copied from a Roman marble cinerary urn that has been known since 1716 and been in the British Museum since 1804. The decoration was therefore added to the fragment in order to enhance its attractiveness and value probably in the 19th century by an astute, well-informed, but unscrupulous person.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass bowl fragment with later inscriptionGlass bowl fragment with later inscriptionGlass bowl fragment with later inscriptionGlass bowl fragment with later inscriptionGlass bowl fragment with later inscription

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.