Glass squat alabastron (perfume bottle)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent light greenish yellow, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow, opaque white, and opaque turquoise blue. Very broad, thick slanting rim-disk, made as a spiral coil around top of neck; cylindrical neck with convex sides; uneven shoulder, almost horizontal on one side and concave on the other; bell-shaped cylindrical body; convex lop-sided bottom, with indent along one side; on upper body, two solid handles, tooled into angular knobs, applied over trail pattern. A yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, alternating bands of yellow, white, and opaque turquoise blue, tooled from top of body to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in thirteen vertical panels with alternating upward and downward strokes, forming large round loops at bottom and bottom. Broken and repaired around body, with one large and two small holes, and several cracks and chips; weathered chip in underside of rim-disk; dulling, pitting, and creamy iridescent weathering. Squat alabastra such as these are unusual. The highly weathered surfaces–the result of their being buried in the ground–have obscured the colors and decoration.
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.