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 horizontal rim-disk, with radiating tooling marks on upper and lower surfaces; cylindrical neck, tapering upward; shallow, uneven shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with slight upward taper and slightly uneven surface; convex, slightly pointed bottom; below shoulder, two irregular trailed knob handles, applied over trail pattern. A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, alternating bands of yellow, white, and turquoise blue, tooled from shoulder to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in seven vertical patterns with alternating upward and downward strokes. Intact, except for small internal cracks on bottom; some of trails completely weathered, leaving only impressions in sides of body; many tiny white inclusions; some pitting and small areas of 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