Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

late 6th–5th century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white. Broad, inward-sloping rim-disk with radiating tool marks on upper surface; cylindrical neck tapering upward; broad rounded shoulder; top-shaped body; circular base-knob with with rounded edge and slightly concave bottom; two vertical strap handles applied to top of shoulder, drawn up, and pressed onto neck and underside of disk-rim. One trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another applied as an uneven pad on shoulder, wound spirally round one and a half times to junction of shoulder and body, then tooled into an uneven close-set zigzag pattern on upper half of body, with twenty-seven alternating upward and downward tooling strokes forming vertical ribs in sides; below this, same trail continues in a spiral to base-knob; part of a fine unmarvered trail runs horizontally around upper body over zigzag pattern. Intact; slight dulling but very little weathering.

Artist

Unknown

Date

late 6th–5th century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917