Glass cosmetic flask (kohl tube)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Translucent blue green; handles and trail in same color. Rounded rim; broad funnel-shaped neck; slender, piriform body; conical tubular foot, made by folding; small, slightly convex bottom; one handle applied in a claw pad to top of body, drawn round horizontally, forming trail-like ring, then turned up and out, tooled in sharply and trailed onto underside of rim with horizontal pinched projection, and ending slightly above rim; the other handle then applied on opposite side of body over the ring, drawn up and out, tooled in sharply and trailed onto underside of rim with fold ending slightly above rim. On body and extending over neck, nine regular ribs that swirl down from left to right, fading towards the bottom. Intact; few bubbles; deep pitting, iridescence, creamy brown weathering, and soil encrustation on inside around bottom of neck.

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