Glass mosaic fragment

Glass mosaic fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thin-walled body fragment. Translucent purple, cobalt blue, honey brown appearing yellow, opaque white, and colorless. Shallow convex curving side. Composite mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of four canes: one in a purple ground with a white circle and a central white rod; another in a brown ground with a white circle and a central white rod; a third in a colorless ground dotted with white rods around a white circle enclosing a blue ground with a central white rod, and the fourth in a blue ground with a white spiral or concentric white circles. Polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; deep pitting and iridescent weathering on interior and edges.

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.