Glass serving dish

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colourless with green tinge. Rim ground smooth; horizontal border with two raised lines on each side of shallow rectangular bowl; sides sloping in to flat bottom; two large horizontal handles with roughly cut hole at center of each and cut decoration along outer edge; at corners, four small incised circles; raised hollow foot of rectangular shape, made by applying thick trail to bottom of bowl and then ground smooth; trail applied at one corner and run all way around bottom. Broken and repaired across one handle and one end of the other with side of tray; some milky weathering and iridescence; dulling and pitting. Such glass vessels may have been made in imitation of rock crystal and marble tablewares, although there are also similar examples in silver plate and the rectilinear shape and sharp edges are much more appropriate for metalwork than glass.

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