Glass bottle in the shape of a fish

Glass bottle in the shape of a fish

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale blue green; applied trails and blobs in same color. Tubular body, tooled at front to form open mouth, and drawn up and pressed flat at back to form solid tail. Tail tooled into three vertical fins; a long trail applied along top to form a dorsal fin; two blobs applied to sides of head as eyes; two tooled blobs applied at sides of body as small fins; two smaller blobs applied at back below tail as other fins, and a small blob applied to front of base of tail. Intact, but some internal cracks in body and small weathered chips in back edge of tail; some pinprick bubbles; dulling, iridescent weathering, and soil encrustation on interior. In the form of a fish with fins.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass bottle in the shape of a fishGlass bottle in the shape of a fishGlass bottle in the shape of a fishGlass bottle in the shape of a fishGlass bottle in the shape 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.