Unguent Bottle (Base-Ring Jug)

Place of OriginEgypt

DateNew Kingdom, Dynasty 18, About 1412-1350 BCE

DimensionsAs restored: 3 9/16 x 15/16 x 2 x 3/8 in. (9 x 2.4 x 5.1 x 1 cm)

MediumCore-formed; applied handle and foot; applied marvered and partly marvered threads.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.330

Not on View

DescriptionBase-ring jug with a medium light blue ground (appearing opaque), decorated with opaque white, opaque yellow, and opaque turquoise-blue threads. The vessel retains the vestiges of a tall cylindrical neck with an upward taper, meeting a rounded shoulder at an obtuse angle. The body is bulbous with a convex base and a short, outward-flaring medium blue foot, concave underneath and edged with a rounded rim. A vertical strap handle of medium blue glass, now restored, extends from the shoulder to the neck. Decoration includes a marvered opaque white thread and a marvered opaque yellow thread on the neck, arranged in alternating rows of zigzag pattern. On the shoulder, marvered threads in opaque yellow, opaque turquoise-blue, and opaque white are tooled into a widely spaced festoon pattern of narrow loops set high on the shoulder. A partly marvered opaque white thread is applied at the edge of the foot.

Published ReferencesRichter, G. M. A., "The Curtis Collection of Ancient Glass," Art in America 2, 1914, p. 75.

Nolte, Birgit, Die Glasgefasse im alten Aegypten, Muncherner Aegyptologische Studien, no. 14, Berlin, 1968, pp. 82-83 and 85, no. 13, pl. 4.

Grose, David F., Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50, New York, Hudson Hills Press in association with the Toledo Museum of Art, 1989, cat. no. 6, p. 60, repr. (col.) p. 41, drawing, p. 397.

Exhibition HistoryUniversity of Missouri Museum, Columbia, Missouri. 1986-87.