Glass flask decorated with intersecting circles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green. Unworked, knocked-off rim; short cylindrical neck, expanding downwards; sloping shoulder, above tall concave collar; spherical body; projecting rounded edge to base with flat bottom; no pontil mark. Body blown into a four-part mold of three vertical sections, extending to bottom of collar, joined to a shallow, disk-shaped base section. On body, sunken relief design of nine interlocking circles with a dot at the center of each circle, bordered above and below by a double row of smaller dots; on bottom, two raised circles, the outer one faint and thinner, around a small central knob. Intact, except for chips around rim; some bubbles; patchy weathering and iridescence.

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