Bulbous Bottle with Six Handles

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Bulbous Bottle with Six Handles

Place of OriginRoman Empire, Palestine

Date3rd-5th century CE

DimensionsH: 8 3/4 in. (22.2 cm); Rim Diam: 1 9/16 in. (4 cm); Diam (body): 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm)

MediumGlass; free blown, applied decoration and handles

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1217

Not on View

DescriptionThis bulbous bottle with six handles was free-blown from medium thick glass and shows some small vertically elongated bubbles in the neck and body. The glass is transparent natural yellowish green (between 10 GY 4/4 and 5 G 5/2) with translucent similarly colored handles and thread. The pontil mark measures about 1.9 cm in diameter. Threads were added and excess glass at the tips of the handles was either drawn back against the handles or clipped off, with visible tool marks at the tops of the handles. The rim is rounded and thickened in flame above a tubular neck with a bulge above a constriction at its base. The gently sloping shoulder leads to a bulbous body with its greatest diameter just below the shoulder and stands on a high pushed-in foot with a hollow tubular base-ring. Six angular coil side handles are applied to the neck just below its midpoint and attached to the shoulder; each pair is arcaded with a separate coil to create a second tier. Above this, six double-tiered side handles are applied over the lower handles, touched down to the upper neck and attached below the rim where they fold downward, inward, upward, and outward to form closed loops, then inward over the rim and flattened. Around the neck from above the tool mark to the rim are approximately eighteen revolutions of thread trailed upward from left to right. This object is classified as a Multiple Handled Bottle Class VF3a in the glass classification system.