Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent blue, with same color pad-base; handles in translucent greenish yellow; trail in opaque yellow. Narrow rim-disk, sloping inward with prominent jagged vertical lip to mouth; cylindrical neck, expanding downward; broad convex sloping shoulder; straight-sided body, tapering downward; small circular pad-base, flattened on underside and with round edge; vestiges of two vertical s-shaped handles on outer edge of shoulder and neck. Yellow trail applied to edge of rim-disk, wound spirally down neck and across shoulder, then tooled into a festoon pattern on body with sixteen upward strokes, and continuing in almost horizontal lines around pad-base at bottom. Broken and repaired, almost all of handles missing, cracks and small holes on sholuder and top of body; dulling, pitting, iridescent weathering around rim-disk and neck, and creamy brown weathering on body and especially on trail.

Artist

Unknown

Date

2nd to mid–1st century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917