Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent blue, with same color pad-base and handles; trail in opaque yellow. Slanting rim-disk, sloping inward, with thick rounded outer edge and jagged vertical lip to mouth; cylindrical neck, expanding downward; broad sloping shoulder; straight-sided ovoid body; broad circular pad-base, flattened but uneven on underside and with round edge; two vertical s-shaped handles applied on shoulder, trailed up along lower part of neck, and pressed on to underside of rim and top neck. Yellow trail applied to edge of rim-disk, wound spirally down neck and across shoulder, where it is tooled into a festoon pattern, with nine upward strokes, continuing in almost horizontal lines at top of body but then tooled into a feather pattern in six uneven panels of alternating upward and downward strokes over rest of body to pad-base. Complete except for chip in rim and upper half of one handle; dulling, slight iridescence, and creamy brown weathering, 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