Glass bottle with dolphin handles

Glass bottle with dolphin handles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless; handles in same glass. Plain, vertical, cracked-off rim; slender cylindrical neck with slightly concave profile and horizontal indent around base; sloping shoulder; straight side to body, tapering downwards; almost flat bottom; two small handles applied in a pad to edge of shoulder, drawn over shoulder to base of neck, then folded back, up, and in, making a loop, and trailed off up neck. Decoration comprises faint horizontal wheel-abraded lines: one band on neck below rim, and three groups on body, each containing two close-set bands. Intact; bubbles, blowing striations, and some black impurities; dulling, iridescence, and whitish weathering, with a layer of soil on bottom of interior. With tiny dolphin handles and slender neck.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handles

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.