Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in opaque white. Inward-sloping irregular rim-disk with rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on upper surface; cylindrical neck, expanding downward; straight-sided fusiform body expanding downward, then tapering in to pointed bottom; two horizontal lug handles applied over trail at top of body. Trail applied at bottom, wound upwards in a spiral to carination, tooled into a festoon around side, with twelve upward strokes, then wound again in a spiral up neck and partially around rim, and trailed off with backward swirl down neck. Intact, but one handle completely missing; dulling, pitting, and faint iridescence. Blue, with white wave pattern; two solid handles.

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