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. Broad, inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck tapering upward; broad, sloping shoulder; elongated ovoid body; circular base-knob with rounded edge; two vertical strap handles drawn up from shoulder, turned in, and pressed on to underside of rim-disk. 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 a zigzag pattern with rounded tops and close-set vertical tooling indents, ending in irregular, thick line around bottom; another thick trail applied to knob-base. Complete, except for part of rim-disk and two-thirds of knob-base; dulling, pitting, and iridescent creamy weathering.

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