Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white and opaque yellow. Cylindrical neck; small, uneven shoulder; cylindrical body, with slightly convex sides, tapering in to uneven rounded bottom with slightly pointed tip; two lug handles applied over trail at top of body, one horizontal, the other probably vertical. A white trail applied around lower neck and wound down in a spiral slight over four times; a second white trail applied vertically on body and wound round almost horizontally in three irregular lines, and a yellow trail wound down neck in a spiral over white, continuing as a band of close-set horizontal lines around middle of body over second white trail and tooled into a zigzag pattern with carelessly applied tooling strokes, then wound around lower body in another band of five spiral lines and trailed off on bottom. Trails have not been marvered. Complete body, but with rim-disk and top of neck missing; dulling, pitting, and iridescent 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