Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
Semi-opaque dark blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white and opaque yellow.
Slightly inward-sloping, broad, coiled rim-disk; short cylindrical neck; uneven shoulder; elongated oval body with upward taper; convex bottom; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trails, one slightly higher than the other.
A white trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another applied as a thick line over shoulder and wound down in tight spiral on upper part of body; below this four bands of trails tooled into a zigzag pattern, comprising a broader trail in yellow wound horizontally slightly more than once, followed by a thin white trail wound round four times, then another thicker yellow trail wound once round body, and another thin white trail wound seven times; a fifth white trail applied on lower down body and wound round eight times in almost horizontal lines and a thicker yellow trail applied over the top of the white trail in an undulating single line.
Intact; pitting of pinprick bubbles, one patch of dulling and weathering down body, and faint iridescence and encrustation on handles.
Slightly inward-sloping, broad, coiled rim-disk; short cylindrical neck; uneven shoulder; elongated oval body with upward taper; convex bottom; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trails, one slightly higher than the other.
A white trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another applied as a thick line over shoulder and wound down in tight spiral on upper part of body; below this four bands of trails tooled into a zigzag pattern, comprising a broader trail in yellow wound horizontally slightly more than once, followed by a thin white trail wound round four times, then another thicker yellow trail wound once round body, and another thin white trail wound seven times; a fifth white trail applied on lower down body and wound round eight times in almost horizontal lines and a thicker yellow trail applied over the top of the white trail in an undulating single line.
Intact; pitting of pinprick bubbles, one patch of dulling and weathering down body, and faint iridescence and encrustation on handles.
Artwork Details
- Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
- Period: Classical
- Date: late 6th–5th century BCE
- Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
- Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group I
- Dimensions: 5 3/16 × 1 3/8 × 1 3/8 in. (13.1 × 3.5 × 3.4 cm)
Diam. of rim: 1 3/16 in. (3.1 cm) - Classification: Glass
- Credit Line: Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881
- Object Number: 81.10.307
- Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art
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East Greek
mid-6th century BCE
Greek
mid-4th–early 3rd century BCE
Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
2nd–mid-1st century BCE
Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
5th century BCE
Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
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