Glass mosaic carinated bowl fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Body fragment. Translucent deep purple, turquoise blue, greyish blue, opaque white and yellow. Carinated side, with part of one narrow convex curve, then slanting sharply downward below. Mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of three canes: one in a purple ground with a hollow white circle and an inner, small yellow circle around a purple band and central white rod; another in a purple ground with a hollow rosette of greyish blue rods outlined in yellow around a purple band and a central yellow rod, and a third in a turquoise blue ground with an indeterminate pattern. Polished exterior; pitting and slight weathering of surface bubbles on exterior; dulling and iridescent weathering on interior and jagged 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