Glass unguentarium (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with opaque yellow and white trails. Everted, horizontal rim disk with rounded outer lip; tall cylindrical neck; narrow, curving shoulder; ovoid body, tapering downwards; tall, applied foot, with concave sides expanding outward to rounded lip around bottom; flat but slightly uneven bottom with kick at center. White trail applied on shoulder and wound twice around base of neck, then in spiral down side of body, ending above foot; yellow trail applied over white, starting on neck and wound around twice, then drawn across shoulder and in spiral down body, and trailed off upwards again, ending midway up body; top of body tooled into numerous shallow, vertical ridges, creating a narrow band of zigzags in trails. Intact; dulling, pitting, and iridescent weathering.

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