Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow, opaque white, and opaque turquoise blue. Broad, slightly slanting and uneven horizontal rim-disk; tall cylindrical neck; narrow rounded shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with slight upward taper; shallow convex bottom; below shoulder, two small lug handles applied over trail pattern, not placed directly opposite each other but both rather to one side. A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, bands of white, turquoise blue, and yellow trails, tooled from shoulder to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in eight vertical patterns with alternating upward and downward strokes, with some of loops extending onto bottom. Broken and repaired around lower body, and one chip in rim-disk; slight pitting, dulling on bottom, and patches of iridescent weathering. With yellow lip, opaque blue, yellow and white feather pattern.

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