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Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)

late 6th–5th century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 159
Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque white.
Slightly concave horizontal rim-disk, with projecting rough edge to mouth; cylindrical neck; narrow rounded shoulder; slightly convex sides to cylindrical body, tapering upwards; convex bottom; two vertical ring handles with knobbed tails, applied over trail decoration; one larger and higher than the other.
A trail attached at edge of rim-disk; another trail applied on neck in a thick marvered pad, wound down, tooled into an irregular feather pattern, with strokes mixing and blurring trails with blue ground.
Intact; dulling, pitting, and patches of brownish weathering.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
  • Period: Classical
  • Date: late 6th–5th century BCE
  • Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
  • Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group I
  • Dimensions: H.: 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm)
  • Classification: Glass
  • Credit Line: Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881
  • Object Number: 81.10.319
  • Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art
More Artwork
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Glass alabastron (perfume bottle), Glass, Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
late 6th–5th century BCE
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), Eretria Painter, Terracotta, Greek, Attic
Attributed to the Eretria Painter
ca. 420 BCE
Cauldron attachment: bull's head, Bronze
ca. 7th century BCE
Glass alabastron (perfume bottle), Glass, Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
Greek, Eastern Mediterranean
5th century BCE

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