Glass aryballos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue, with same color handles; trails in opaque yellow, probably with another in opaque turquoise blue. Broad inward-sloping rim-disk with radiating tooling marks on underside; short cylindrical neck; angular shoulder; almost spherical body; convex, slightly pointed bottom with small indent at center; two ring handles with knobbed tails extend from shoulder to neck. A yellow trail applied to outer edge of rim-disk; another broad yellow trail applied on upper body and wound down in spiral, at first in horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern around central section of body, formed by uneven, shallow vertical tooling indents; a second trail in turquoise blue added to middle of body, mingling with the yellow trail; below zigzag pattern, a yellow and a turquoise blue trail wound once round body . Intact; dulling, pitting, and faint 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