Glass monochrome dish fragment

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque red. Flat bottom; integral, low base ring. Polished interior; pitting of surface bubbles on interior; thick green weathering on exterior and base ring; similar weathering on most edges. Part of the flat bottom of a dish with a low base ring on the exterior. The opaque red color was very popular and appears on numerous examples of Roman cast monochrome glass. The surface often appears as a weathered green color because the copper, added to the glass to give it its vivid red color, has leeched out over time.

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