Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opaque white, with handles and base-knob in same color; trails in translucent purple. Broad, inward-sloping rim-disk, aslant to neck; cylindrical neck with concave sides; broad sloping shoulder; elongated ovoid body tapering to a point; circular base-knob with rounded edge; two vertical strap handles applied over trails, drawn up from top of shoulder, turned in, and pressed on to neck. One trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail applied at base of neck, wound round in a spiral on shoulder, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern on upper half of body; below this, another thinner trail wound round twice horizontally; a third fine trail around bottom edge of base-knob. Complete, except for weathered chip in rim-disk; dulling, pitting, faint iridescence, and most of body covered with creamy 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