Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

5th century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Opaque dark purple, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue. Broad slightly uneven horizontal rim-disk; short cylindrical neck; narrow rounded shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body with upward taper; convex bottom; two vertical ring handles with tails, applied over trail decoration. A yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another thicker yellow trail applied to neck; a fine turquoise blue trail also applied at top of body; both wound down in a spiral, tooled into a pattern in part resembling a zigzag, in part a feather, ending with a thick turquoise blue trail around the bottom. Intact; dulling, pitting, and weathering with areas of yellow-brown encrustation.

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