Glass network mosaic bowl fragment

Glass network mosaic bowl fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rim fragment. Translucent blue, opaque white, and colorless. Applied coil rim with rounded lip; slightly convex curving side, tapering downward. Rim in blue with fine double white spiral threads; body decorated with eleven colorless narrow canes slanting from top right to bottom left, decorated with two spirally twisted white threads. Pinprick bubbles; exterior polished, with pitting of surface bubbles; dulling and creamy iridescent weathering on interior, rim, and jagged edges. The body of the vessel, probably a hemispherical bowl, is decorated with lengths of glass comprising a colorless cane wound spirally with parallel threads in opaque white glass. The rim is marked by a separate cane of blue and white threads.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.