Glass amphoriskos (perfume bottle)

Unknown

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

Translucent blue; handles in translucent greenish yellow; trail in opaque white. Uneven, slanting rim-disk, with thick rounded edge and sloping inward; thick cylindrical neck, with tooling indents around top; narrow angular shoulder; elongated ovoid body; pointed bottom; vestiges of two vertical handles applied in pads at different heights on shoulder, trailed up neck, and pressed on to top neck; a marvered blob of translucent greenish yellow glass applied over trail on lower body. Trail applied to rim-disk and wound spirally down, tooled into a feather pattern on body in nine irregular panels of alternating upward and downward strokes, then continuing on lower body in a spiral and ending on pointed bottom. Body complete, but most of handles missing; dulling, pitting, iridescence, and small areas of milky white weathering.

Artist

Unknown

Date

2nd to mid–1st century BCE

Medium

Glass

Culture

Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915