Glass unguentarium (perfume bottle)

3rd century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 158
Translucent cobalt blue, with opaque turquoise blue handles, rim-disk, and pad-base; trails in opaque white and yellow.
Turquoise blue trail applied as outsplayed rim-disk around rounded top of neck; tall, slender neck, tapering slightly downward; steeply sloping shoulder; elongated piriform body, tapering downward to applied; small pad-base with uneven flat bottom; two small loop handles applied to edge of shoulder and top of body with everted upward angle.
White and yellow trails attached at top of neck and wound down as alternate spiral lines, tooled into a festoon pattern round upper half of body, with twelve upward tooling strokes.
Complete except for part of rim-disk and weathered chip in pad-base; one large pitted hole on edge of shoulder; some dulling and pitting, especially of turquoise blue additions, and slight weathering of trail decoration.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Glass unguentarium (perfume bottle)
  • Period: Hellenistic
  • Date: 3rd century BCE
  • Culture: Greek, Eastern Mediterranean, possibly Alexandrian
  • Medium: Glass; core-formed, Group II
  • Dimensions: 3 11/16 × 1 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (9.4 × 4.5 × 3.8 cm)
    Diam. of rim: 7/8 in. (2.2 cm)
    Diam. of base: 1/2 in. (1.3 cm)
  • Classification: Glass
  • Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.194.784
  • Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art

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