Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Uncertain color, appearing black, with base-knob in translucent greenish yellow; trails in opaque yellow and opaque white. Rim-disk, sloping deeply inward, with rounded edge and tooled indent around top of neck; tall cylindrical neck; broad angular shoulder; ovoid body, turning in to almost pointed bottom; vestiges of large knob-base; very slight vestiges of two vertical strap handles applied over trails on shoulder and pressed on to sides of neck. Yellow trail applied to top of neck and wound spirally down and across shoulder, a second thin white trail applied around neck, then both tooled into a close-set festoon pattern to lower body, with twenty-five uneven upward strokes, and continuing in thick spiral lines to pointed bottom. Body complete but most of handles and base-knob missing, with most of trails completely weathered, leaving only indentations in body; dulling, severe pitting, and iridescence.

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