Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue. Broad inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck; broad sloping shoulder; top-shaped body; circular base-knob with deep indent on bottom; two vertical strap handles applied to shoulder, drawn up, and pressed onto neck. A yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another yellow trail applied in a thick irregular circle around neck and top of shoulder, wound in a spiral across shoulder and around top of body, then tooled into an uneven zigzag pattern on upper half of body, where a turquoise blue trail is added, mingling with the yellow, forming vertical ridges in sides; below, a fine yellow trail wound horizontally nearly twice around lower body; a turquoise blue trail and a yellow trail wound around base-knob. Intact; bubbles and gritty white impurities; slight dulling and pitting, but very little 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