Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

2nd to mid–1st century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Translucent pale blue, with handles in translucent greenish yellow; trail in opaque yellow. Thin rim-disk, sloping deeply inward, with jagged vertical lip to mouth; tall cylindrical neck; broad angular shoulder; elongated ovoid body, turning in to almost pointed bottom; vestiges of two vertical strap handles applied over trails in large pads on shoulder and pressed on to top neck. Yellow trail applied to edge of rim-disk, wound spirally down neck and across shoulder, then tooled into a close-set festoon pattern to lower body, with twenty-three uneven upward strokes, forming slight vertical ribbing on sides, and continuing in thick spiral lines to pointed bottom. Cracks around rim and in body, with most of handles and all of base-knob missing; some pitting, most of surface covered with creamy brown weathering and iridescence.

Artist

Unknown

Date

2nd to mid–1st century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891