Object Image

Glass bowl

Greenish colorless.

Outsplayed, thick rim, with ground lip; globular body; thick, flat bottom.

Wheel-cut decoration on exterior: below rim, two horizontal lines; on body, three horizontal bands of twenty-two vertical oval facets; on bottom, large round facet surrounded by a circle of six smaller round facets.

Intact, except for one small weathered chip below rim; pinprick bubbles; dulling, pitting, faint weathering and iridescence,

Glass to a large extent supplanted pottery as the principal medium for good quality tableware during the later imperial period, especially in the northwestern provinces. Many of the glass vessels were decorated with cut designs, some figural but others with detailed linear or facet patterns—as in the case of these three vessels, a dish, a bowl, and a flask that may have used as a wine carafe. All three were probably made locally in Cologne.

[Group label] 81.10.46,.244, 17.194.317

Credit: Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881

3rd–4th century A.D.
Glass; blown and cut
6.8 x 8.4cm
81.10.244
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection