Glass flask with elaborate looped handles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green; handles and trails in same color. Thick rim folded out, over, and in, flattened on top; tall, slightly concave neck, with tooling indent around base; sloping shoulder; side tapering downwards and curving in to low, conical pedestal; tubular base with rounded edge, made by folding; kick in bottom with circular pontil scar; four rod handles applied in claw pads over trail decoration to middle of neck, drawn out, turned down vertically, and trailed off on top edge of body; four trails attached to handles at point where they bend down, drawn across from left to right in a large upward loop, and applied to top of next handle. Single trail applied in a small pad near base of neck, drawn up and wound round in a spiral 27 times, ending at rim. Intact; some bubbles in handles; dulling, limy encrustation, and small patches 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