Glass snake-thread flask shaped like a mouse
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent cobalt blue, with same color added head, ears, eyes, feet, and snake-thread decoration. Rounded and thickened rim; funnel-shaped, elongated neck with tooling marks around base; misshapen piriform body, with separate large blob of glass (solid?) applied to rounded bottom of body. The neck has been turned upwards to appear like the mouse’s tail; added to the body of the vessel to create the animal are four separate tooled trails for the feet and for the head a large blob that has been drawn out to make a pointed nose; ears and eyes have also been added to the head; the body is further decorated with snake-thread trails, all flattened and notched, in the form of two long-necked, thin-legged birds, one on the animal’s back, the other on his belly between his feet, interspersed with foliage comprising tendrils and ivy leaves; a plain spiral trail is wound twice around the lower part of the neck. Broken and repaired, with small losses to body below head and part of spiral trail on neck is missing. Dulling and iridescent weathering. Snake-thread is a term used by modern scholars to describe the distinctive type of trailed decoration that is found on this mouse-shaped flask. The trails have been applied in an irregular pattern and then tooled with hatching. Both the shape and the deep blue color of the flask are most unusual.
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.