Bulbous Bottle with Four Handles

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Bulbous Bottle with Four Handles

Place of OriginRoman Empire, Palestine

Date6th century

DimensionsH: 5 13/16 in. (14.8 cm); Body Diam: 2 3/16 in. (5.5 cm); Base Diam: 1 15/16 in. (5 cm)

MediumGlass; free blown and tooled

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1213

Not on View

DescriptionThis bulbous bottle with four handles is free-blown from medium thin transparent natural yellowish green glass (between 10 GY 4/4 and G 6 5/2), with vertically elongated bubbles in the neck and body and similarly colored handles and thread. It has a pontil mark about 2.1 cm in diameter. The tubular neck features a bulge above a constriction at its base, leading to a gently sloping shoulder and a bulbous body with its greatest diameter at the shoulder. The vessel sits on a pushed-in foot with a hollow tubular base-ring. Four angular coil side handles are applied to the neck and attached to the shoulder, while a second tier forms a single thick continuous coil in circular section, creating arcades above the first tier with the excess glass coiled into a decorative button. Around the neck are at least twelve revolutions of thread trailed upward from left to right. On the body, nine shallow elongated indentations result from pinching sixteen thin vertical ribs that continue onto the neck, forming a pattern of X’s alternating with pairs of parallel ribs over which the handles are attached. This object is classified as a Multiple-handled Bottle Class VE3a-r.