Alabastron (perfume bottle)
Place made:Greece
Date: ca. 500-490 BC
Dimensions:height: 6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm)
diameter of mouth: 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm)
max. diameter: 1 13/16 in. (4.6 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.
Object number: 86.25.1
Provenance: with Galerie Günter Puhze, Freiburg by 1983; sold by Galerie Günter Puhze to San Antonio Museum of Art, 1986
Published References
Galerie Gunter Puhze, "Kunst der Antike," cat. 5 (Freiburg 1983) 22, no. 203
H.A. Shapiro, C.A. Picon, and G.D. Scott, III, eds., Greek Vases in the San Antonio Museum of Art (San Antonio, 1995) pp. 132-3, no. 66
E. Hatzivassiliou, "The Iconography of Black-figure Alabastra by the Diosphos and Emporium Painters: Specific Subjects for Specific Uses?", in Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th-4th Centuries B.C.), Proceedings of the Symposium held at the Université de Bruxelles, 27-29 avril 2006, ed. A. Tsingarida (Brussels: Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine, 2009), 233, fig. 10
Label TextThis alabastron was decorated in an unusual method called Six’s technique, after the scholar who first studied it. In this technique the vase was covered with black gloss, and then images were painted in colors added over the gloss; incision was used to indicate some details. The extensive use of added color makes the surface of vases executed in Six’s technique particularly fragile.
(Jessica Powers, 2008)