Glass alabastron (perfumebottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Coloress with pale greenish tinge. Rim with everted, beveled, horizontal lip; short, funnel-shaped neck; rounded shoulder; elongated ovoid body; round bottom; on upper body, two solid projecting, semicircular handles, tapering outward, carved from body of vessel. Broken and repaired with several areas of fill in body; pinprick bubbles; dulling, pitting, and small patches of thick, white weathering. The alabastron was cast and then ground to its present shape. The Phoenicians were probably important intermediaries in the introduction of glass objects and technology from the Near East and Egypt into Cyprus.

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