Glass lentoid aryballos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

4th–3rd century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Translucent honey brown, with same color handles and cord; trails and blobs in opaque white. Broad flat rim-disk with rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on upper surface; slender cylindrical neck, tapering downwards; sloping shoulder; globular lentoid body; convex bottom; two large vertical ring handles attached to shoulder. A trail attached at edge of rim-disk; a circular marvered blob applied to both faces of body; a large cord, twisted together with a white trail, attached under handles runs down sides and across bottom. Broken and repaired, with large chip in one side of body; some pitting, large patches of milky white weathering and iridescence. Together with the other two similar aryballoi displayed here (17.194.309 and 30.115.7), this bottle belongs to a small group of core-formed glass that may have been made in southern Italy, Sicily, or even Carthage. It has also been suggested that these bottles may have been worn as amuletic pendants around the neck.

Artist

Unknown

Date

4th–3rd century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

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