Glass mosaic fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Body fragment. Translucent purple, deep turquoise blue partially layered with opaque yellow and appearing green, opaque white and yellow. Shallow convex curving side. Short-strip mosaic pattern formed from lengths of canes set at angles to each other, comprising stripes and squares in blue, green, white and purples, with yellow splashes. Polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; dulling, deep pitting of surface bubbles, and patches of creamy weathering on interior and edges. Edges appear to have been ground down and rounded, making the fragment into a ttriangularshape, perhaps in antiquity.

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