Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
Translucent blue, with handles in light blue green; trail in opaque greyish light blue.
Broad slightly inward-sloping rim-disk with thick rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on lower surface; tall 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 with a deep horizontal indent in surface; one small marvered blob of translucent blue on side just below point of greatest diameter.
Trail applied at bottom, wound upwards in a spiral to carination, tooled into a close-set feather pattern around side, with fourteen alternating upward and downward strokes, then wound again in a spiral up neck and irregularly to top and edge of rim-disk.
Intact, but some internal cracks around body; slight dulling, pitting, and patches of creamy weathering and iridescence.
Broad slightly inward-sloping rim-disk with thick rounded edge and radiating tooling marks on lower surface; tall 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 with a deep horizontal indent in surface; one small marvered blob of translucent blue on side just below point of greatest diameter.
Trail applied at bottom, wound upwards in a spiral to carination, tooled into a close-set feather pattern around side, with fourteen alternating upward and downward strokes, then wound again in a spiral up neck and irregularly to top and edge of rim-disk.
Intact, but some internal cracks around body; slight dulling, pitting, and patches of creamy weathering and iridescence.
Artwork Details
- Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
- Period: Hellenistic
- Date: 2nd–1st century BCE
- Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
- Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group III
- Dimensions: H.: 5 in. (12.7 cm)
- Classification: Glass
- Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
- Object Number: 17.194.590
- Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art
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