Glass aryballos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

late 6th–5th century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Semi opaque turquoise green, with same color handles; trails in opaque yellow and possibly opaque turquoise blue. Uneven inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck; broad angular shoulder; almost spherical body; convex bottom, with linear tooling indent across it; two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trail decoration, extend from top of body to underside of rim-disk; handles are not directly opposite each other but rather more to one side. A yellow trail applied to outer edge of rim-disk; another yellow trail applied on shoulder and wound spirally, at first in horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern around central section of body, where another broader trail is added to the zigzag, mingling with the yellow; below, a fine yellow trail wound horizontally twice around body. Complete except for chip in rim-disk; film of whitish weathering and brilliant iridescence covering most of bottle.

Artist

Unknown

Date

late 6th–5th century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881