Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment

Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rim fragment. Translucent purple, turquoise blue, opaque white, yellow, and colorless. Vertical rim with slightly inwardly-beveled edge; shallow convex curving side. Short-strip mosaic pattern formed from short lengths of three or more canes set in slanting lines: one cane consists of a purple ground with white spiral enclosing a colorless ground with a central yellow rod; a second comprising of a blue band layered with white; a third in a colorless ground with a yellow spiral around a small central white rod encased in blue; a colorless network cane wound spirally with two blue threads is attached as a rim. Pinprick bubbles in rim; polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; dulling and creamy weathering on interior, rim, and jagged edges.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass short-strip mosaic bowl fragmentGlass short-strip mosaic bowl fragmentGlass short-strip mosaic bowl fragmentGlass short-strip mosaic bowl fragmentGlass 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.