Glass phiale (libation bowl)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with light greenish tinge. Outsplayed rim with rounded edge; top of side curving in, then a short raised, vertical band, and finally curving in to shallow convex bottom. On exterior, raised band carved into two broad grooves; on lower side, extending to bottom, a raised pattern of twenty elongated, pointed petals; on bottom, a raised circular disk with a further raised irregular boss carved with an eight-pointed rosette with rounded petals at center. Broken and repaired, with some fill in lower side and bottom; a few pinprick bubbles; dulling and patches of faint iridescent weathering.

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