Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Period:: Hellenistic

Date:: 2nd–mid-1st century B.C.

Culture:: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean

Medium:: Glass; core-formed, Group III

Dimensions:: H.: 5 3/16 in. (13.1 cm)

Classification:: Glass

Credit Line:: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917

Accession Number:: 17.194.579

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 171

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in opaque white.
Inward-sloping irregular rim-disk with rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on upper surface; cylindrical neck, expanding downward; straight-sided fusiform body expanding downward, then tapering in to pointed bottom; two horizontal lug handles applied over trail at top of body.
Trail applied at bottom, wound upwards in a spiral to carination, tooled into a festoon around side, with twelve upward strokes, then wound again in a spiral up neck and partially around rim, and trailed off with backward swirl down neck.
Intact, but one handle completely missing; dulling, pitting, and faint iridescence.

Blue, with white wave pattern; two solid handles.

Perrot, Georges and Charles Chipiez. 1885. Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité. t. 3, Phénicie, Cypre. pl. VII.III, Paris: Hachette.

1903. Collection Julien Gréau. Verrerie antique, émaillerie et poterie appartenant à M. John Pierpont Morgan. no. 29, p. 9, pl. 5.6.

Timelines
Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.

Department

Greek and Roman Art (17,314)

Object Type / Material

Geographic Location

Date / Era

1000 B.C.–A.D. 1 (16,827)