Glass jar with marvered trails

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Uncertain translucent color; trail and pontil pad in opaque brownish red. Thick, outsplayed rim, folded over, in, and pressed down into mouth; very short, concave, cylindrical neck; globular body; kick in bottom, with traces of pontil pad. Single marvered trail applied as a large pad on bottom and wound up in a spiral eleven or more times over body and rim, then tooled into hanging festoons with seven upward tooling strokes. Intact; pinprick bubbles on surface; thick creamy brown weathering and iridescence covering most of body with areas of pitting and dulling on exterior, but trail largely unweathered, soil encrustation and thick weathering on interior. Other examples are said to be made from translucent yellowish brown glass. A number of jars of this type are known, all probably from the same Syrian workshop. Their date, however, is less certain, and suggestions range from the 3rd to the 8th century A.D.

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