Glass gold-band mosaic alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, colorless, translucent turquoise blue, translucent purple, opaque white, and gold leaf. Plain vertical rim, ground flat; slender body, expanding downwards, then curving in to pointed bottom. On exterior, parallel wavy lengths of five canes set vertically on blue body: the first in turquoise blue; the second in cobalt blue with a central white stripe; the third in purple with two white stripes, the fourth again in cobalt blue with a central white stripe; and the fifth in gold leaf sandwiched between two layers of colorless glass. The first four canes are repeated twice over the body, but the gold leaf cane only appears once. Intact body, except for slight chipping to bottom (the alabastron would originally have had a separate neck piece with broad horizontal rim disk); dulling, deep pitting, and brown weathering.

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