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Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

3rd–2nd century BCE
Not on view
Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trail in opaque yellow.
Thick horizontal rim-disk, unevenly shaped with radiating tooling marks on upper surface; cylindrical neck, tapering slightly downward; small sloping shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body; convex bottom; on upper body, two lug handles, applied over trail pattern; one considerably larger than the other.
Trail attached at top of rim-disk, wound spirally round edge, then down across neck, and over body where it is tooled into a close-set feather pattern in five vertical panels of upward and downward strokes, ending around edge of bottom.
Intact; some dulling and iridescent brownish weathering on rim, neck, and upper body.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
  • Period: Hellenistic
  • Date: 3rd–2nd century BCE
  • Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
  • Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group III
  • Dimensions: H.: 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm)
    Diam.: 1 1/16 x 1 1/8 in. (2.6 x 2.8 cm)
  • Classification: Glass
  • Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.194.596
  • Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art

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