Swallow-Shaped Perfume Flask

Rhodes, the Greek island off the coast of Asia Minor, was famous for its scents and perfumed oils, which it shipped all around the Mediterranean. This little flask for perfume is a swallow at rest, standing on its feet with its wings folded. The body is smooth and streamlined, and the only break in the surface is a small opening in the head for pouring. The stopper is lost.

The museum dates it to around 610 to 600 BC, and it belongs to a rare series of swallow flasks from Rhodes. Two very similar ones are in the British Museum and the Louvre. The shape may echo a local custom described about 800 years later by the Greek writer Athenaeus. Every year on Rhodes, young people went round collecting offerings, carrying the image of a swallow and singing and dancing for it. This one was found in a rich tomb at Vulci, which the excavators named the Tomb of the Swallow in its honour. In 2025 it crossed Rome for an exhibition at the Colosseum about Brancusi, the modern sculptor of birds in flight.