Glass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapes

Glass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent honey brown. Rim folded out, down, over, and up, with beveled outer lip; cylindrical neck with horizontal tooled indent around base; slightly pushed-in horizontal shoulder with hollow projecting roll below; ovoid body; low cylindrical base, with flat bottom. Pontil scar at center of bottom. Body blown into a three-part mold of two vertical sections, extending from base to shoulder, and a disk-shaped base section. On body, a pattern of stylized grapes comprising eleven interlocking rows of twenty-two unevenly-spaced hemispherical knobs, and at top two indistinct leaves front and back between the mold seams, both on the same section of mold. Intact; many bubbles; patches of dulling, limy weathering, and iridescence.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapesGlass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapesGlass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapesGlass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapesGlass bottle shaped like a bunch of grapes

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.