Bag-Shaped Beaker

Place of OriginCyprus, excavated by 1873

Date3rd-4th century CE

DimensionsGlass Dimensions: 3 3/16 × 2 1/8 × 2 11/16 in. (8.1 × 5.4 × 6.8 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1916.156

Not on View

DescriptionThis bag-shaped beaker (Vessberg 1952, Jar type A II) is made of medium thin, transparent natural pale green glass (5 G 7/2) with numerous pinprick bubbles throughout the fabric. It was free-blown and tooled, with a circular pontil mark approximately 0.7 cm in diameter on the base. A thin trail of similarly colored glass is applied approximately 1.7 cm below the rim. The vessel features an outsplayed rim that is rounded and thickened in the flame, with a visible tooling mark along the interior edge. The body swells to its greatest diameter just above the base and narrows into a slightly flattened bottom with a central depression. .

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.