Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white and opaque yellow. Thick slight inward-sloping rim-disk, with radiating tooling marks on upper surface; tall cylindrical neck, slanting to one side; small sloping shoulder; cylindrical body with slightly convex sides; slightly flattened bottom with cross-shaped tooling marks; on upper body, two lug handles, applied over trail pattern, one higher than the other; both have trailed off ends to one side extending towards shoulder. A white trail applied to neck, wound round once horizontally and then down in a spiral to body; a yellow trail attached unevenly around rim-disk, then drawn down in a spiral on neck to body over white trail; both trails tooled into a close-set feather pattern in six vertical panels of upward and downward strokes with vertical projecting loops at shoulder, ending around edge of bottom. Intact but with slight internal cracking on neck; some dulling and pitting, with faint iridescence and minor areas 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