Glass amphoriskos (perfume flask)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent reddish purple; handles in colorless glass with a smoky green tinge. Tubular rim, folded out, over, and in, and flattened into flaring mouth; tall cylindrical neck; ovoid body; low 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 pressed onto middle part of neck. One prominent continuous mold seam down neck, around body, and across bottom. On body, frieze of twenty-two widely-spaced, downturned rounded ribs on upper body ( twelve on one side, ten on the other) and twenty-four upturned rounded ribs on lower body; between them two horizontal raised lines. Complete, but broken and repaired around rim and top of neck; few bubbles; dulling and iridescence, with one patch of deep pitting and brillaint iridescence on body, 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