Glass amphoriskos (perfume flask)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent, slightly streaky purple, with handles in colorless glass with a smoky green tinge. Misshapen tubular rim, folded out, over, and in, forming irregular flaring mouth; cylindrical neck; very narrow horizontal shoulder; ovoid body; cylindrical base, with flat but uneven bottom; two small rod handle attached in a claw pad to top of body, drawn up, round, and in, and trailed onto upper part of neck. One prominent continuous mold seam down neck, around body, and across bottom. On body, frieze of twenty-two downturned rounded ribs on upper body and twenty-eight upturned rounded ribs on lower body, joined by a central band of tendril scrolls bordered above and below by two horizontal raised lines. Intact; some bubbles; faint iridescence on exterior, some weathering and iridescence on interior.

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