Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque pale turquoise blue. Broad uneven rim-disk with radiating tooling marks on upper surface; short, funnel-shaped neck; rounded shoulder; elongated oval body with upward taper; convex bottom; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trails. One yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another applied on shoulder and wound down in spiral on upper part of body, where a second broader trail in turquoise blue is added, mingling with the first, then both tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern around middle of body, formed by uneven shallow vertical tooling indents; below this, another broad turquoise blue trail wound unevenly around lower part of body. Complete except for part of rim-disk, with cracks around body; dulling, pitting, slight iridescence, and milky 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