Glass flask with six handles

Glass flask with six handles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green; trail and handles in translucent deep turquoise green. Plain rounded rim; flaring mouth; cylindrical neck, expanding downwards; squat bulbous body; splayed tubular foot, made by folding; pushed-in bottom with pontil mark at center; five (originally six) rod handles attached in pads to upper body, drawn up vertically, then turned in and down, and folded onto upper neck over trail decoration. Trail applied to lower neck and wound round twenty times in a spiral, covering all of neck and underside of mouth. One large hole in upper body and most of one handle missing, internal cracks in foot ring; few bubbles; dulling, creamy brown weathering, and iridescence.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Glass flask with six handlesGlass flask with six handlesGlass flask with six handlesGlass flask with six handlesGlass flask with six handles

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.