Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent yellow green, appearing black; one handle and base-knob in yellow brown, the other handle in yellow green with blue tinge; trails in opaque yellow and opaque white. Inward-sloping oval rim-disk, with uneven tooling indent underneath; tall cylindrical neck, tapering downwards; sloping shoulder; elongated piriform body; globular but misshapen base-knob; two rod handles applied in pads across shoulder over trail decoration, drawn up and slightly out to above rim, then looped in and down; one attached to neck below rim, the other in a double loop to top of neck and underside of rim-disk. Yellow trail applied around lip of rim and then wound in a spiral around neck and shoulder to body, then tooled into a festoon pattern with twenty-seven irregular upward strokes on upper third of body; a thick white trail added over bottom of yellow and also tooled into the same festoon pattern around middle of body and continuing in a plain spiral around lower part of body, ending under base-knob. Intact; pitting of surface bubbles with faint iridescent weathering, and small patches of encrustation.

Artist

Unknown

Date

2nd–mid-1st century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917