Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Opaque white, with knob-base in same color; trail in translucent purple. Sloping shoulder; tall conical body tapering to rounded point; large circular base-knob with rounded edge and flat bottom. Thick unmarvered trail wound round in a spiral on shoulder, then tooled on body into zigzag pattern, extending to knob-base, with long vertical tooling indents in alternating upward and downward strokes, forming prominent rounded ribs around body. Broken and repaired, with rim-disk, neck, handles, and almost half of body missing; some pitting and iridescent weathering. This broken bottle shows how the interior of the vessel retained considerable traces of the core, made of sand, clay, and a binding agent, around which the molten glass was applied to form the vessel.

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