Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Unknown

late 4th–early 3rd century BCE · Glass · Greek and Roman Art

Opaque light turquoise green, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white and opaque yellow. Broad, flat rim-disk, slanting to one side; short cylindrical neck; almost imperceptible sloping shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, tapering upward; uneven pushed-in bottom; at top of body, two lug handles, applied over trail pattern, both with tooled upward indents. A yellow trail attached to edge of rim-disk; another yellow trail and a white trail, applied after the yellow, wound spirally from top of body in alternate lines down to edge of bottom; both tooled, forming almost vertical indents in sides of body, with alternating upward and downward strokes, making a close-set zigzag pattern on lower half of body. Broken and repaired around middle of body, with cracks and some small holes; dulling and small patches of iridescent milky weathering and encrustation mainly around neck and rim-disk.

Artist

Unknown

Date

late 4th–early 3rd century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917