Fish Flask
Description
Object Label: Vessels Ancient Egyptian artists produced vessels in both glass and faience, producing different effects with each material. The Egyptians began manufacturing glass vessels during the Eighteenth Dynasty reign of Thutmose III (circa 1479–1425 B.C.E.). Early examples, valued for their rarity and beauty, were luxury items used to store precious oils and perfumes. Craftsmen produced striking effects by adding threads of colored glass to a vessel’s surface while it was still hot and then dragging a pointed object across the surface to produce festooned patterns. The artist who made the fish flask shown here indicated the animal’s scales by pressing blue powdered glass down into the interior. Early scholars often incorrectly characterized faience as simply an inexpensive substitute for glass, but recent research suggests that the Egyptians favored the material because of its attractive color and its association with water, the source of creation. A characteristic type of Eighteenth Dynasty faience vessel is the shallow bowl. Early in the dynasty, artists painted the interiors of these bowls with marsh scenes including fish and water plants; later painters introduced human figures. Caption: Fish Flask, ca. 1390–1292 B.C.E.. Glass, 2 1/4 × 4 3/8 × 1 5/8 in. (5.7 × 11.1 × 4.1 cm) mount (m2): 7 × 4 1/4 × 1 1/2 in. (17.8 × 10.8 × 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.316E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
The image shows a small, fish-shaped vessel with a bulbous body and a projecting fin tail, mounted on a thin support rod against a light background.
The object appears to be a stylized fish flask: an elongated body with a pointed head and a rounded tail, with a small dorsal/upper fin-like protrusion near the rear. The surface is mottled with brownish/greenish weathering or staining, and there is a darker, more worn area around the midsection. A circular/stopper-like element is visible at one side near the rear, suggesting a neck opening or attachment point, and the flask is currently mounted on a slender stand. No clear painted decoration or clear incised hieroglyphs are visible. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is present. The material appears consistent with glass or a glass-like surface, though the image quality does not allow definitive confirmation of glass.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.316E tier-2
- BKM-Object 4014 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.