Glass dish with gilding

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with pale yellowish tinge. Plain rounded rim; straight side tapering diagonally downward; slightly concave bottom. On interior, a band below rim, comprising two horizontal grooves, the upper narrow and the lower broader, and halfway down side a broader band comprising a fine groove, followed below by a broader groove, then a ridge, undercut below with another broad groove, and finally another narrow groove. On exterior, traces of gilding on sides and bottom. Broken and repaired, with four small areas of fill; many pinprick and a few larger bubbles; dulling, pitting, iridescence, and small patches of creamy brown weathering. Rotary grinding marks on interior and exterior. This dish finds its closest parallels among the so-called Canosa Group of Hellenistic glass tableware and, like them, it probably comes from South Italy.

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