Glass mosaic fragment

Glass mosaic fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep purple, appearing black, opaque white, yellow, and red. Rounded edge. Decoration of white marvered trails, tooled into a festoon pattern, with small areas in yellow and red. Polished exterior, with pitting of surface bubbles; interior covered in silvery weathering; jagged edges. Possibly part of an inlay.

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.