Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent light blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow. Broad flat rim-disk; short slightly slanting cylindrical neck; narrow rounded shoulder; straight-sided body with upward taper; convex bottom marked by irregular tooling indents; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails applied over trail decoration; one slightly larger than the other. One trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another applied as a thick blob at top of body and wound down in spiral four to five times, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern around the central part of body; below this, a third trail wound two and a half times horizontally around lower body. Complete, except for weathered hole in neck and crack around bottom; slight dulling and pitting, and most of body, especially the trails, covered with creamy iridescent weathering.

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