Glass perfume bottle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with blue green tinge. Tubular rim folded down, over, and in, and pressed into everted mouth; cylindrical neck flaring downward, with irregular shape at top from tooling; broad, almost flat body, with convex side, curving out and downward; pushed-in bottom with central kick and large pontil mark. Complete except for about half of rim and mouth, and internal cracks in body; some pinprick bubbles; dulling, iridescence, and patches of creamy brown weathering. This unusually large bottle with its broad, shallow body, belongs to a type that is often called the ‘candlestick unguentarium.’

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