Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent pale greenish yellow, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow, opaque turquoise blue, and opaque white. Horizontal rim-disk, made as a spiral coil around top of neck; cylindrical, slanting neck; small sloping shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with upward taper; convex bottom; on body, two small ring handles, applied over trail pattern. A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, alternating bands of yellow, turquoise blue, and white, tooled from top of body to bottom into a close-set feather pattern in six vertical panels with alternating upward and downward strokes, forming long loops on bottom. Broken, most of rim-disk missing, internal cracks around neck, and other cracks and small holes around lower body; dulling, pitting, and faint iridescence.

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