Glass flask in the form of a fish

Glass flask in the form of a fish

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Uncertain color (probably colorless); trails in same glass. Rounded, thickened rim; neck bent upward to form tail, tapering towards body; body flattened into irregular lentoid shape; bottom drawn out in two solid projections to form mouth. Fine trail wound once round neck; another trail wound once around lower body to form gills; between gills and mouth, two applied blobs for eyes, one on each side of body; long thick trail applied to upper edge of body from behind mouth to base of neck, pinched into thirteen flat, projecting flanges, for dorsal fin; and two large blobs, tooled into vertical, flat flanges, applied to top of body as rear fins (these are anatomically incorrect). Intact; pinprick bubbles; severe pitting and weathering, with most of surfaces covered in a grey, enamel-like weathering layer and some patches of brilliant iridescence. Glass containers in the form of a fish were probably made in the Syro-Palestinian region. Whether their shape relates specifically to their contents (that is, a sauce to pour on a fish dish) or is merely a decorative whim cannot now be determined. It is unlikely, however, that they had any specifically Christian symbolic associations.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass flask in the form of a fishGlass flask in the form of a fishGlass flask in the form of a fishGlass flask in the form of a fishGlass flask in the form of a fish

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.