The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

Art Object

Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron and Son

Seán Hemingway, curator, Department of Greek and Roman Art, discusses early twentieth-century reproductions of works from Sir Arthur Evans's historic excavations of Minoan Crete and Heinrich Schliemann's Mycenaean Greece.

This lecture was recorded on September 9, 2011, in conjunction with the exhibition Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son, on view May 17, 2011, through June 17, 2012.

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Eros, God of Love
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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.: 4 13/16 in. (12.2 cm)
Classification:: Glass
Credit Line:: Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881
Accession Number:: 81.10.311

This artwork is not on display

Description

Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in opaque white.
Rim-disk with thick rounded edge, uneven with radiating tooling marks on upper surface and projecting jagged inner edge to neck; 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, one slightly higher than the other.
Thick trail applied around rim, then drawn down in a spiral around neck, across body, and trailed off around bottom, with plain spiral at top and bottom, but tooled into a festoon pattern from neck to the point where the body turns inward towards the bottom, with twelve upward strokes.
Intact; some dulling, a few deep pitting holes, and faint iridescence.
Provenance

Said to be from Corinth (Froehner 1879, p. 138, pl. I, 3)

Until 1881, collection of Jules Charvet, Le Pecq, Île-de-France; 1881, purchased from J. Charvet by Henry G. Marquand; acquired in 1881, gift of Henry G. Marquand.
References

Froehner, W. 1879. La verrerie antique: déscription de la Collection Charvet. Le Pecq: J. Charvet, Chateau du Donjon, pp. 37, 38; p. 78, no. 5; pl. I, 3; p. 138.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1881. Twelfth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Association for eight months ending December 31, 1881. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 215-216.
See also
What
Glass (16,037)

Alabastra (183)
Where
Europe (148,586)

Greece (6,287)
When
1000 B.C.-A.D. 1 (23,148)
In the Museum
Greek and Roman Art (17,329)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.