Jar with Basket Handle

Place of OriginAncient Rome, from coastal Syria or Palestine

DateLate 4th-5th century CE

DimensionsH: 9 3/16 in. (18.5 cm)

MediumColorless glass with greenish tinge, applied trails of dark greenish blue glass; blown, trail-decorated and tooled

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1211

Not on View

DescriptionMedium thick glass. Small bubbles and black specks. Blowing spirals. Transparent natural pale green (5 G 7/2). Translucent dusky green handles, coils, trails, and thread (near 5 G 3/2). Free-blown. Pontil mark ca. 1.5 cm in diameter. Added coils, thread, and trails. Excess glass at tips of handles and openwork additions clipped off. Collar rim, rounded in flame with open cutout below. Deeply concave neck with curved transition to shoulder. Strongly sloped shoulder. Bulbous body with greatest diameter below middle. High pushed-in base with hollow tubular base ring. Nine coil handles applied to shoulder, touched down to side of cutout, and attached to side of rim with three pinched folds in each, one at either end and one in middle. Basket handle with double layer of open network trailing, crimped trail above folded loops. Around foot, nine decorative coil handles applied to lower part of body and attached to edge of base ring with three pinched folds in each, forming a wishbone handle. On body, an irregular, thick zigzag thread continuing upward as three revolutions. CLASSIFICATION Jar Class II G 2 b with blue zigzag

Published ReferencesRichter, G. M. A., "The Curtis Collection of Ancient Glass," Art in America 2, 1914, p. 79, fig. 17.

Grose, David F., "Ancient Glass," TMA Museum News 1978, p. 82, fig. 28.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, repr. (col.) p. 49.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 91, repr. (col.).