Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent yellowish green; base-knob and handles in translucent light green; trails in opaque greyish light blue and opaque white. Uneven inward-sloping rim-disk, with projecting jagged edge to mouth and tooled indent around underside; tall cylindrical neck, tapering upward; sloping shoulder; elongated piriform body; pointed bottom; spherical base-knob with short cylindrical stem; two vertical s-shaped rod handles applied over trail decoration in folded pads across shoulder, drawn up to base of neck and pressed onto neck below rim-disk. A light blue trail and a white trail applied to underside of rim, wound down in a spiral, sometimes as alternating lines, sometimes with white overlaying blue, around neck and shoulder to body, then tooled into a close-set festoon pattern with thirty-four upward strokes, continuing in a plain spiral around lower part of body with white trail getting thicker, ending under knob-base. Broken and repaired on body with some minor chips, but parts of both handles missing; pitting and dulling, with patches of brownish weathering.

Artist

Unknown

Date

2nd–1st century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917