Cosmetic Vessel (Cylinder Beaker) (1980–1801 BCE): Art, History and Details

Cosmetic Vessel (Cylinder Beaker) (1980–1801 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Jars of this shape and material are common in Middle Kingdom tombs. This one, however, is inscribed with the Egyptian word merhet, which means "perfumed oil," and after thousands of years it still has traces of sweet-smelling resin.

Object facts

• Title: Cosmetic Vessel (Cylinder Beaker)
• Date: 1980–1801 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Middle Kingdom (2040–1648 BCE), Dynasty 12
• Type: Vessels
• Technique: travertine
• Dimensions: Diameter of mouth: 5.6 cm (2 3/16 in.); Overall: 6.5 cm (2 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Middle Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1914.813

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kozloff, Arielle P. “Egyptian Stone Vessels in Cleveland.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 8 (October 1986): 327–339.
• Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.