Glass hexagonal jar with basket handle

Glass hexagonal jar with basket handle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale blue green, with same color handle. Outsplayed rim folded outward, over, and inward; broad, funnel-shaped neck; narrow, sloping shoulder; hexagonal body, with slightly convex vertical edges, tapering downwards, with slightly impressed side panels; pushed-in bottom, with central pontil scar; rod handle, applied in a pad to top of one panel on body, drawn up and outward, then tooled in horizontally onto outer edge of rim, drawn back outward and then curved up and tooled into a triangular basket handle, then dropped onto edge of rim and down onto top of body above edge of one panel, and finally trailed off, with trail extending to apex of basket handle. On body, six elongated rectangular panels, flanked with prominent vertical ribbed edges and decorated with matching pairs of three different geometric relief patterns: vertical lozenges with central dots, a lattice of diamond-shaped bosses, and a stylized palm frond with eleven or twelve leaves to either side of central stem; on bottom, a six-petalled rosette. Intact; some bubbles; some soil encrustation, creamy brown weathering, and iridescence.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass hexagonal jar with basket handleGlass hexagonal jar with basket handleGlass hexagonal jar with basket handleGlass hexagonal jar with basket handleGlass hexagonal jar with basket handle

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.