Glass ribbed bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale blue green. Uneven vertical rim with rounded top edge and vertical plain band below; deep convex side curving in to slightly concave bottom. On interior, a broad band of fine abraded lines on lower part of side; on exterior, twenty-two long, slender ribs, some vertical, others slightly slanting, with flattened and tooled tops, tapering downwards and extending onto bottom. Intact; many pinprick bubbles; on interior, patches of creamy brown weathering, and faint iridescence on exterior. Vertical tooling indents to one side of tops of some ribs. These examples of a very common and widespread type of early Roman cast tableware represent the three main varieties—mosaic, deep monochrome, and naturally-colored translucent glass. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.194.561)

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