Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow. Uneven, almost horizontal rim-disk, with rounded edge; cylindrical neck; small, sloping shoulder; cylindrical body, with slightly convex sides, tapering in to uneven rounded bottom; two horizontal lug handles applied over trail at top of body. Two trails applied around edge of rim-disk, wound down in a spiral, both tooled into a feather pattern on body in five panels of alternating upward and downward strokes, then trailed off on bottom. Intact, but with parts of trails completely weathered, leaving only indentation in body; dulling, severe pitting and weathering, 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