Glass bottle with dolphin handles

Glass bottle with dolphin handles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colorless with pale greyish blue green tinge; handles in same color. Uneven, cracked-off rim; cylindrical neck, expanding downwards with horizontal tooled indent around base; sloping shoulder with rounded slightly overhanging edge; cylindrical body, tapering slightly downwards and curving in to concave bottom; two small "dolphin" handles dropped onto bottom of neck, drawn down over shoulder, then up and in, forming loop, and trailed off above. On body, bands of faint horizontal wheel-cut lines, one below shoulder, another halfway down side, and possibly a third near bottom, each comprising two parallel lines. Body complete, but broken at rim and neck with some losses; bubbles and striations; dulling, creamy white weathering, and iridescence. Colorless cylindrical bottle with handles in the form of dolphins.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handlesGlass bottle with dolphin handles

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.