Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

3rd–2nd century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in opaque yellow. Thick horizontal rim-disk, unevenly shaped with radiating tooling marks on upper surface; cylindrical neck, tapering slightly downward; small sloping shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body; convex bottom; on upper body, two lug handles, applied over trail pattern; one considerably larger than the other. Trail attached at top of rim-disk, wound spirally round edge, then down across neck, and over body where it is tooled into a close-set feather pattern in five vertical panels of upward and downward strokes, ending around edge of bottom. Intact; some dulling and iridescent brownish weathering on rim, neck, and upper body.

Artist

Unknown

Date

3rd–2nd century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917