Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Translucent cobalt blue; handles and base-knob in translucent colorless with pale green tinge, but one handle with additional trail in dark olive green, appearing black; trails in opaque white and opaque yellow . Uneven rim-disk, with rounded edge and sloping inward; tall, slender cylindrical neck, with tooling indents around top; narrow sloping shoulder; elongated, narrow ovoid body; pointed bottom with applied base-knob; two vertical handles applied with separate pads on shoulder, and pressed on to upper neck. Yellow trail applied to edge of rim-disk and wound spirally down neck and across shoulder, a second white applied over yellow at top of body, both tooled into a feather pattern on body in eleven irregular panels of alternating upward and downward strokes, then fine white trail continuing on lower body in a spiral almost two turns but thicker yellow trail continuing and ending on pointed bottom; one irregular patch of yellow over decoration on upper body. Body complete, but most of handles missing; dulling, pitting, faint iridescence, and small patches of milky white 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.