Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Uncertain, appearing opaque black, with handles in same color; trails in opaque turquoise blue. Broad horizontal rim-disk with rounded, raised lip around mouth; slanting cylindrical neck, tapering downwards; narrow rounded shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body; lopsided convex bottom; two large vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trail decoration; one longer than the other. A trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail applied to top of body, wound in a close-set, regular spiral down body, ending around bottom. Intact; some limy encrustation down one side, and rest covered with iridescent creamy white 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