Glass bottle with marvered trails

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent deep purple; trails in opaque white and yellow. Thick rim, folded out, down, round, and in, forming slight constriction around mouth, with slightly conical beveled upper surface; cylindrical neck with tooled indent around base; conical body, curving in at base; bottom slightly concave at center. Two trails, one in white, the other in yellow, applied at rim and wound in a spiral down neck and side, the yellow trail ending around edge of bottom and the white ending in a loop across bottom; both marvered and tooled into an irregular zigzag pattern. Intact, except for one small chip in rim and weathering of trails; some bubbles; pitting, dulling, and faint 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