Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent dark cobalt blue, appearing black, with same color handles; single trail in opaque yellow. Horizontal rim with rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on top surface; cylindrical neck; broad sloping shoulder; ovoid body; pointed bottom; two vertical strap handles applied to shoulder, drawn up in a curve, then turned in and attached to top of neck and underside of rim. Trail applied below rim, wound spirally twice around neck and drawn down across shoulder to body, tooled into a zigzag pattern with close-set vertical indents around upper half of body, and ending as an uneven horizontal line. Body complete, but large chip in rim; base-knob missing and crack on lower part of body; only slight dulling and pitting.

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