Glass oinochoe (perfume jug)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Opaque white, with handle and foot in same color; trails in translucent purple. Applied broad trefoil rim-disk; rather tall cylindrical neck, slanting forward; broad sloping shoulder; ovoid body; applied outsplayed foot with uneven concave bottom; handle attached to top of body over trail decoration, drawn up and out, then turned in and pressed on to back of neck below rim. One trail attached at edge of rim-disk; a second fine trail wound horizontally once around shoulder; a thicker trail begun on shoulder and wound spirally, at first in horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern around upper half of body; below this, a fourth trail wound horizontally three times around body; finally, a fifth trail wound around edge of foot. Complete, but broken and repaired bottom of body and top of foot; some dulling and pitting, iridescent weathering, and patches of creamy brown encrustation. These glass vessels with opaque white bodies and purple threads have been found throughout the Greek world, but most examples are from cemeteries and sanctuaries in the eastern Mediterranean.
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.