Bulbous Bottle with Two Handles

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Bulbous Bottle with Two Handles

Place of OriginRoman Empire

Date4th-5th century CE

DimensionsH: 7 in. (17.8 cm); Rim Diam: 1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm); Body Diam: 2 3/8 in. (6 cm)

MediumGlass; free blown, applied and tooled decoration and handles.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1054

Not on View

DescriptionThis bulbous bottle with two handles (Bulbous Bottle I C 1 b) is made of thin glass. The glass is transparent natural pale green (5 G 7/2) with translucent moderate blue green handles, trails, and thread (near 5 BG 4/6). The fabric cannot be determined because of weathering. It was free-blown, with a pontil mark approximately 1.6 cm in diameter. The thread was added while hot, and the excess glass at the tips of the handles was clipped off. The rim is rounded in flame, leading to a funnel neck with a constriction at its base. The bulbous body has its greatest diameter above the base and rests on a high pushed-in foot with a hollow tubular base ring. Two triple-tiered looped side handles with crimped trails are applied above the base and trailed up along the side of the body to just below the neck’s constriction. Each handle features eight crimps on one side and ten on the other, then bends outward to form a loop, touches down to the lower neck, bends out to form a second loop, touches down to the middle of the neck, bends out to form a third loop, and attaches to the rim. Around the neck, there are at least twenty revolutions of thin thread trailed upward from left to right.

Exhibition HistoryTampa Museum of Art; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Clearly Inspired: Contemporary Glass and Its Origins, 1999, p. 36, 124.