Spindle Bottle with Handle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Egyptian glass vessels were often modeled after vessels originally made in other materials. This slender flask of turquoise glass was copied from an imported pottery "spindle bottle" of the type that Syrians are depicted carrying in contemporary Egyptian tomb paintings, actual examples of which would most likely have contained some sort of resin. The flask was core-formed and finished by hand, with the strap handle applied separately. The elongated, ovoid body and slender neck were decorated with finely executed zigzags of dark blue and white glass. The handle is embellished with repeating bands of dark blue, yellow, and white. Glass objects were first imported into Egypt from the Near East in the joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. Egyptian craftsmen, who had more than a millennium of experience manufacturing the related substance faience, quickly added the art of glass making to their repertoire.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art