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Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

mid-4th–early 3rd century BCE
Not on view
Translucent blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue.
Flat rim-disk, slanting slightly to one side; short cylindrical neck; small sloping shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with upward taper; uneven convex bottom; on body at different heights, two lug handles, applied over trail pattern; one with trailing tail upwards across body.
A yellow trail applied as a blob at top of body and another trail in turquoise added below, and both trailed down in a spiral and tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern with shallow vertical ribbing, ending in a spiral around edge of bottom.
Complete, but cracked around middle of body; dulling, some pitting, and iridescent brownish weathering.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
  • Period: Late Classical or Hellenistic
  • Date: mid-4th–early 3rd century BCE
  • Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
  • Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group II
  • Dimensions: H.: 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm)
  • Classification: Glass
  • Credit Line: Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881
  • Object Number: 81.10.314
  • Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art

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