Glass aryballos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue, with same color handles; trails in opaque yellow, with another probably in opaque turquoise blue. Broad inward-sloping rim-disk with vertical projecting lip to mouth; short cylindrical neck; irregular, almost spherical body; convex, slightly projecting bottom; two strap handles applied in long, flattened pads to top of body, drawn up and outward, then curving in and trailed on to underside of rim-disk. Yellow trail applied to outer edge of rim-disk; another wide 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, and ending on underside in two more horizontal lines; a second trail in turquoise blue probably added to middle of body, mingling with the yellow trail. Intact; dulling, slight pitting, and iridescent milky 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