Glass cup with splayed foot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green. Outsplayed tubular rim, folded over and in; tall curving neck, tapering downwards; thick projecting shoulder; squat, globular body; applied conical foot, formed from a separate gather, with edge cracked-off and ground flat; small, circular, flat bottom. Eleven vertical ribs in high relief tooled out from shoulder down side of body. Rim and body cracked with one hole in side; part of foot broken and missing; few bubbles; dulling, pitting, creamy brown weathering, and faint iridescence. This cup or chalice bears a similarity to the ribbed bowls also displayed here (91.1.1247, .1346), but the treatment of the rim and the addition of the foot make it a very unusual example of Roman blown glass tableware.

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