
Glass mosaic carinated bowl fragment
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rim fragment. Translucent deep purple, opaque white, yellow, and brick red, and colorless. Outsplayed, almost horizontal rim with tapering edge; carinated side, with one deep convex curve. Composite mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of two canes: one in a purple ground with a circle of white dots and a central red rod; the second with a yellow spiral in a colorless ground. Polished interior; pitting and creamy weathering of surface bubbles on interior; dulling, weathering, and some iridescence on exterior, edge of rim, and jagged 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.