Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.

Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rim fragment. Translucent purple, greyish blue, layered blue green appearing yellow green, opaque white, yellow, and brick red, and colorless. Vertical rim with rounded edge; side slanting downward and curving in at bottom. Short-strip mosaic pattern formed from rectangular lengths in white, green, and red; a strip in blue with a white spiral thread, and a square in a purple ground with a checkerboard pattern of five white rods; a colorless cane wound spirally with a double yellow thread is attached as a rim. Polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; dulling, pitting, and iridescent weathering on interior, edge of rim, and jagged edges.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment.

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.