Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
Translucent cobalt blue, with handles in same color; trails in opaque yellow, opaque white, and opaque turquoise blue.
Broad horizontal rim-disk; cylindrical neck, tapering upward; narrow, almost horizontal shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with slight upward taper; convex bottom, with off-center tooling indent and applied small blob of blue glass; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles, unpierced, with trailing tails, one of which is higher up body than the other, applied over trail pattern.
A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, alternating bands of yellow, white, and turquoise blue, tooled from shoulder to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in eight vertical patterns with alternating upward and downward strokes, with some of loops at top extending onto neck and some deep indents in sides.
Body intact, but parts of rim-disk missing and restored with fill; slight pitting, but very little iridescence or weathering.
In the late fourth century B.C., perfume containers often are far larger than their predecessors and have strikingly elegant decoration in the form of delicate colored threads combed into a zigzag, feather, or festoon pattern.
Broad horizontal rim-disk; cylindrical neck, tapering upward; narrow, almost horizontal shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body, with slight upward taper; convex bottom, with off-center tooling indent and applied small blob of blue glass; below shoulder, two vertical ring handles, unpierced, with trailing tails, one of which is higher up body than the other, applied over trail pattern.
A fine yellow trail attached at edge of rim-disk; on body, alternating bands of yellow, white, and turquoise blue, tooled from shoulder to undercurve at bottom into a close-set feather pattern in eight vertical patterns with alternating upward and downward strokes, with some of loops at top extending onto neck and some deep indents in sides.
Body intact, but parts of rim-disk missing and restored with fill; slight pitting, but very little iridescence or weathering.
In the late fourth century B.C., perfume containers often are far larger than their predecessors and have strikingly elegant decoration in the form of delicate colored threads combed into a zigzag, feather, or festoon pattern.
Artwork Details
- Title: Glass alabastron (perfume bottle)
- Period: Hellenistic
- Date: late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
- Culture: Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
- Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group II
- Dimensions: 6 1/4 × 1 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (15.9 × 4.5 × 3.8 cm)
Diam. of rim: 1 15/16 in. (4.9 cm) - Classification: Glass
- Credit Line: Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891
- Object Number: 91.1.1362
- Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art
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Etruscan
early 5th century BCE
Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
4th–3rd century BCE
Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
Eastern Mediterranean or Italian
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
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