Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent green, appearing black; handles and base of uncertain color; patch near base in opaque red; trail in opaque white. Inward-sloping rim-disk, with upward rounded lip; cylindrical neck, expanding downwards; sloping shoulder with indented surface; piriform body; applied knob base; two rod handles applied in pads across shoulder, drawn up vertically, then looped in and down, and pressed onto neck below rim over trail decoration. Single white trail applied to lip of rim and then wound in a spiral around neck and shoulder to body, then tooled into a festoon pattern with twenty-eight upward strokes, continuing in a plain spiral around lower part of body and under base knob, and trailed off up side. Broken and repaired, with one handle completely missing and hole in side of body; dulling, deep pitting and weathering, with brilliant iridescence.

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