Glass double head-shaped bottle
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent patchy purple. Uneven rim folded out, round, and in; flaring mouth; cylindrical neck, slanting to one side and with deep tooling indent at base; plastic body; oval base with rounded edges and slightly concave bottom; small round pontil mark on bottom. Mold seams visible on sides of head, extending to base of neck. Body in the shape of two heads, back to back, one with a smiling face, the other with a serious face; smiling face with fillet across forehead and hair parted down middle and arranged in regular horizontal rows to sides of face; the serious face with wavy hair to sides and prominent topknot; smiling face has arched eyebrows extending to bridge of nose, eyes with indents for pupils, open mouth, thick lips, and rounded chin; serious face is less well defined with raised eyebrows, a broad flat nose, pursed lips, and a receding chin. Intact; limy encrustation, thick creamy weathering, and brilliant iridescence. Although the details on two heads are indistinct, the fact that the smiling face wears a fillet or headband and the serious face may have small curved horns on his temples suggests that they may be identified as the wine god Dionysos and a satyr respectively.
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.