Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque white, with handles and base-knob in same color; trails in translucent purple. Deeply inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck tapering upward; uneven, sloping shoulder; tall conical body; large, slanting circular base-knob with rounded edge and slight indent on bottom; two vertical strap handles drawn up from shoulder, turned in, and pressed on to underside of rim-disk and top of neck. One thick, rounded trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail applied on shoulder and wound round spirally, at first in horizontal lines, then tooled into an irregular zigzag pattern from the greatest diameter of the body to the base-knob, with deep vertical tooling indents around upper body; another trail applied to edge of knob-base. Complete, except for weathered chip in base-knob; some pitting of large bubbles, and iridescent creamy weathering covering all surfaces, obscuring trail pattern on body. Two-handled vase with zigzag pattern.

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