Glass oinochoe (perfume jug)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handle in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque white. Applied trefoil rim-disk; short cylindrical neck; broad rounded shoulder with irregular shape; ovoid body with downward taper; applied low circular coiled pad-base, almost flat on bottom; strap handle attached to outer edge of shoulder, drawn up and round in a curve and with a sideways slant, and attached to top edge of rim-disk. Poorly and hastily formed. A yellow trail attached in a thick blob at edge of rim-disk; another yellow trail wound spirally two and a half times around neck; other fine yellow trails wound intermittently around shoulder; a white trail wound spirally four times round upper body, tooled into an irregular zigzag pattern; below, another yellow trail wound horizontally round in two turns and a thicker white trail applied over it and wound round one and a half times further down body. Intact; patches of creamy brown weathering and 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