Piriform Bottle with One Handle (Unguentarium)

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Piriform Bottle with One Handle (Unguentarium)

Place of OriginCyprus, excavated by 1873

Date4th century CE

DimensionsGlass Dimensions: 3 9/16 × 1 × 1 7/8 in. (9 × 2.5 × 4.8 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Object number

1916.164

Not on View

DescriptionThis piriform bottle (IA1[b] with handle IA2ac; Isings 1957, Forms 8–28 [variation]) is made of transparent natural pale green glass (near 10 G 6/2), with a similarly colored translucent handle. The vessel is free-blown and tooled, with no pontil mark. Small spherical bubbles are visible throughout, particularly elongated vertically in the neck and upper body. The circular mouth features an everted collar rim, folded outward, downward, outward again, and upward. The tall cylindrical neck has a slight bulge just above the base, marked by a band of approximately four tool marks. The piriform body constitutes about two-thirds of the vessel’s height. The base is flattened. A single plain coil handle extends from the lower neck to the rim and is folded into a distinctive closed figure-eight form. At the point of application, the handle terminates in a crimped tail that extends down the body.

Label TextThis small object marks a formative moment in the Toledo Museum of Art’s “teenage years.” In 1916, the museum made a deliberate decision to collect Greek and Roman antiquities more systematically, acquiring a group of eighty-eight ceramic, bronze, and glass objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All were excavated on Cyprus by Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832–1904), the Met’s first president, and entered Toledo’s collection when the institution was still defining the scope of its antiquities holdings.

The bronze objects (1916.134–1916.149) reflect Cyprus’s early mastery of copper, a resource so central to the island that its Latin name, cuprum, derives from Cyprus itself. Bronze Age weapons, including a dagger (1916.149), attest to early casting traditions, while later Roman-period tools reveal long-term continuity in everyday practices. Tweezers (1916.147), cosmetic implements (1916.144–145), mirrors (1916.135–136), and a rare buckle (1916.146) point to routines of personal care across centuries.

The glass vessels (1916.150–1916.165) document a different technological transformation. Most are Roman blown glass, produced after the invention of the blowpipe in the first century BCE, a development that shifted glassmaking from a luxury craft to large-scale production. One earlier ribbed bowl (1916.153), formed by slumping glass over a mold, preserves an older and more labor-intensive technique.

The acquisition also included several dozen ceramic vessels. Over time, the scope of the museum’s collection evolved, and most of these ceramics were later deaccessioned. Two Archaic vessels from Cyprus, a stamnos (1916.79) and an oinochoe (1916.96), remain in the collection as representatives of this early phase of collecting.

Published References(possibly) Cesnola, Atlas III, pl. xcv:1 (ex Vessberg, text p. 128).