Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in uncertain color (opaque white ?). Broad horizontal rim-disk, sloping slightly outward; tall cylindrical neck; narrow horizontal shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with upward taper; convex bottom; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles, both pierced, with short pointed trails, applied over trail pattern. A single fine trail wound around body, tooled from top to bottom of body into a close-set zigzag pattern in ten vertical panels with deep vertical indents. Broken and repaired around lower body, with three large holes; some large white inclusions; dulling, deep pitting, and weathering, leaving little trace of the trail decoration.

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