Glass flask

Glass flask

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green. Everted rim, with folded lip flattened into inside of funnel-shaped mouth; cylindrical neck, tooled in around base; horizontal shoulder; squat, globular body; thick, slightly pushed-in bottom with pontil scar. Around lower body, two horizontal rows of irregular short pinched fins, five in upper row and four in lower. Intact; some pinprick and larger bubbles; faint dulling and iridescence on exterior, patches of brown weathering on interior.


Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.