Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue; trails in opaque yellow and opaque white. Broad, flat rim-disk, with radiating tooling marks on underside; cylindrical neck, expanding downward; broad sloping shoulder; straight-sided ovoid body; broad circular pad-base, flattened but uneven on underside and with round edge; two vertical s-shaped handles applied on shoulder, trailed up along lower part of neck, and pressed on to underside of rim and top neck. Both trails applied to edge of rim-disk and wound spirally down, tooled into a feather pattern on neck and shoulder in three panels of alternating upward and downward strokes, continuing on body in another feather pattern of five panels, extending to pointed bottom. Broken and repaired on rim, but body complete; handles and pad-base missing; dulling, deep pitting, faint iridescence, and small areas of milky 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