Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue. Uneven inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck with spiral tooling marks, tapering downwards; broad sloping shoulder; top-shaped body; circular base-knob with indent on uneven bottom; two strap handles applied to top of shoulder, drawn up, and pressed onto neck. Turquoise blue trail attached at edge of rim-disk; a yellow trail applied in an irregular spiral around shoulder and top of body; a second thicker yellow trail tooled into an uneven zigzag pattern around middle of body, where a turquoise blue trail is added, mingling with the yellow, forming shallow vertical ridges in sides; below, a yellow and a turquoise blue trail wound horizontally once around lower body; a turquoise blue trail wound carelessly around base-knob. Intact, except for weathered chip in outer edge of rim-disk; dulling and pitting, with faint 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