Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow, opaque white, and opaque turquoise blue. Broad rim-disk, formed as a coil with slightly sloping upper surface; cylindrical neck, tapering downward; narrow angular shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with slight upward taper and slightly uneven surface; convex bottom; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles, with trailing tails, applied over trail pattern. A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk and wound round twice; on body, alternating bands of yellow, white, and turquoise blue, tooled from shoulder to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in eight vertical patterns with alternating upward and downward strokes, forming rounded loops at top and bottom. Intact, except for small weathered chip in rim-disk; dulling, pitting, and large areas of iridescent weathering, with some small patches of limy and black encrustation.

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