Glass mosaic fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thick-walled body fragment. Translucent purple, turquoise blue, and opaque white. Very shallow curving side, with two straight edges at right angle to each other. Mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of two canes: one in a purple ground with a white spiral, and another in a blue ground with a white spiral. Polished exterior; pitting of surface bubbles on exterior; pitting and iridescent weathering on interior and edges. Perhaps cut down in antiquity into a square shape with an apex one one side.

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