Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent cobalt blue, with handles and base-knob in same color; trails in opaque yellow and turquoise blue. Broad inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck; broad, gently sloping shoulder; ovoid body, tapering downwards to pointed bottom; applied small circular base-knob with rounded edge and flat bottom; two strap handles applied to shoulder, curved up and inwards onto neck, then drawn down neck and trailed off behind base of handle. One yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another yellow trail applied to shoulder and wound in a spiral around top of body, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern on upper body, where a turquoise blue trail is added, mingling with the yellow; below this, a yellow and a turquoise trail, each wound horizontally once around body, the yellow running over the lower tips of the zigzag pattern on one side. Complete, except for part of one handle, and some internal cracks in upper body; slight dulling and pitting. Glass vessels such as these first appeared in the Greek world late in the sixth century B.C. They originally contained perfumes or scented oils used in funerary rites, after which the bottles were left in the grave.
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.