Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque white, with handles and knob-base in same color; trails in translucent purple. Broad, inward-sloping oval rim-disk with radiating tool marks on upper surface and small mouth; tall cylindrical neck tapering upward; broad, sloping shoulder; elongated ovoid body tapering to a point; slanting circular base-knob with rounded edge and flat bottom; two vertical strap handles applied at top of shoulder, drawn up vertically, turned in, and pressed on to underside of rim-disk and top of neck. One uneven trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail wound round in an uneven spiral on shoulder, then tooled into a zigzag pattern on upper body, with twenty-two deep vertical tooling indents; a third trail applied to lower body, also tooled into an irregular zigzag pattern; finally, a fourth trail applied around edge and underside of knob-base. Complete, but part of rim-disk broken and repaired, leaving one large chip and smaller hole; internal cracks in body; 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