NARRATOR: Graceful, feathered red and white forms decorate this light green glass drinking horn. It was probably made in Northern Italy, possibly in the sixth or seventh century.

Lisa Pilosi is a Conservator in the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation, responsible for the glass at The Metropolitan Museum’s collection.

LISA PILOSI: Glass drinking vessels in the shape of horns are relatively rare and are thought to imitate actual horns. Like other vessels that cannot stand on their own, the implication is that the drinker must empty the cup in one go.

This medieval glass drinking horn is an example of the survival of the Roman glass making tradition. The invention of glass blowing, around the middle of the first century BC, was the most important Roman contribution to the development of glass making. Glass blowing allowed objects to be made quickly (and) cheaply…so that glass was available to a much wider sector of society. Blowing continued to be the principle method of manufacturing glass objects in medieval Europe.

(This) horn has been reconstructed from…fragments. It was felt…that it was not necessary to fill in missing areas, because the shape of the vessel was apparent, and modern museum goers can appreciate that an object, which is over a thousand years old, has had a rather checkered history.