Glass mosaic bowl fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rim fragment. Translucent blue, purple layered with white appearing opaque brick red, opaque yellow, white, and colorless. Applied coil rim with rounded vertical lip; side tapering downward. Rim in blue with a single broad spiral thread; body decorated with short-strip mosaic pattern formed from rectangular lengths of two canes set randomly or at right angles to one another: one in blue with white lines and streaks, the other in bands of red, yellow, and white; one small square in colorless glass. Exterior polished, with pitting of surface bubbles; dulling and faint creamy weathering on interior and some iridescent weathering on edges.

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