Glass mosaic perfume bottle (unguentarium)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent honey brown and opaque white. Thick, flaring rim with beveled upper edge; tall cylindrical neck, expanding downward; ovoid body, tapering to solid pedestal base with concave side and flat bottom. Mosaic pattern, imitating banded agate, formed from large, irregularly shaped sections of a single cane in a brown ground with multiple white spiral and zigzag threads, drawn up in a twisted spiral on neck. Broken and repaired, with some minor chips and cracks, and one area of fill on rim and upper neck, and another on lower body and upper part of base; pitting of surface bubbles and faint iridescence. Rotary grinding marks on exterior. This bottle marks a transitional stage in the production of closed forms in glass—from the core-formed and cast vessels of the Hellenistic world to the ubiquitous blown glass of the Roman Empire.

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