Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

5th century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Opaque dark red brown, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue. Broad slightly uneven horizontal rim-disk; cylindrical neck; rounded shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body with slight upward taper; convex bottom; two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trail decoration. Intermingled yellow and turquoise blue trails attached at edge of rim-disk; a yellow trail applied to bottom of neck and a turquoise blue trail applied to top of body and overlaid on the yellow; both wound in a spiral around top of body, then tooled first into an inverted festoon and lower down into a close-set zigzag pattern; the yellow trail continuing in a spiral around bottom. Broken and repaired, with several holes and chips in body; dulling, pitting, and faint iridescent weathering. During the fifth century B.C., the colors of Mediterranean Group I vessels expanded from blue or opaque white to include dark green, golden brown, and opaque brick red.

Artist

Unknown

Date

5th century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917