Glass mosaic fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thin-walled bottom (?) fragment. Translucent purple, turquoise blue, opaque yellow and white, and colorless. Almost flat but curving upward at two corners. Composite mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of three canes: one in a purple and colorless ground with a rosette of seven small yellow spirals; another in a purple ground with a concentric white circle and a central yellow spiral, and the third in a turquoise blue ground with yellow concentric circles and a central yellow rod. Polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; dulling and creamy weathering on interior and 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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art