Glass portrait head

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque deep red. Solid block. Carved in the round: male head with short wavy hair and fringe across forehead, arched brows, large eyes, and clean shaven face. Broken, with large unweathered chip in proper right side of face and side of head, and weathered chips to nose, mouth, and chin; green copper weathering surface. This small portrait head may represent a prince from the family of Constantine I.

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