Bell-Shaped Bottle

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Bell-Shaped Bottle

Place of OriginCyprus, excavated by 1873

Dateprobably 2nd century CE

DimensionsGlass Dimensions: 4 15/16 × 1 5/8 × 2 11/16 in. (12.5 × 4.1 × 6.8 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Object number

1916.151

Not on View

DescriptionThis bell-shaped bottle (Candlestick Class VA"3a) is made of transparent natural pale green glass (5 G 7/2). The glass is of medium thinness, containing small spherical bubbles in the body and vertically elongated bubbles in the neck. The vessel was free-blown and tooled. A circular scar approximately 1.9 cm in diameter is visible on the base. The lip is outsplayed at an angle with the rim rolled inward. The neck is tall and thick, tapering without a visible toolmark at its base. The domed body comprises about one-third of the vessel’s total height. The base is concave.

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.