Glass flask

Glass flask

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with pale green tinge. Plain, vertical rim, ground flat; funnel-shaped neck; globular body; small, flattened bottom. On neck, two horizontal bands of wheel-cut grooves comprising a single line below rim and a double line two-thirds of way down neck; on body, two concentric grooves around shoulder, a band of three horizontal grooves around body at point of greatest diameter, and two more concentric grooves near base of side; between the uppermost and lowest bands, a further eight bands of double lines form oblique circles around the body, creating a pattern of triangles and other geometric shapes. Complete, but many internal cracks in neck and body; some pinprick bubbles and a few glassy inclusions; dulling, slight pitting, creamy brown weathering, and iridescence. Flasks decorated like this one with complex linear and geometric designs were made in the western provinces at places such as Cologne (see 17.194.317, also on view in this gallery). However, they were clearly part of an Empire-wide style, and similar vessels have been found in the Roman East. The flaring rim of this flask is typical of the eastern examples.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.