Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes

Datelate 6th through 5th century BCE

DimensionsH: 4 5/16 in. (11 cm); Rim Diam: 1 in. (2.6 cm); Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.3 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.165

Not on View

DescriptionThis alabastron features a cobalt-blue ground decorated with opaque white and opaque yellow threads. It has a moderately broad, nearly horizontal rim-disk that slopes obliquely inward and is uneven on both its upper and lower surfaces. A short cylindrical neck leads to a shoulder that extends obliquely downward and an elongated oval body that tapers slightly upward to a convex bottom. Two vertical cobalt-blue ring handles with unopened apertures and knobbed tails are applied below the shoulder. An opaque white thread, partly marvered, is attached at the edge of the rim-disk, with visible streaks of the same color on the upper surface. Another white thread, also partly marvered, begins on the neck and is wound spirally in uneven horizontal lines to the middle of the handle zone. Below this, a narrow opaque white marvered thread, flanked at the top, middle, and bottom by broad opaque yellow threads, is spiraled and tooled into a zigzag pattern extending to below the middle of the body. A wide opaque white marvered thread follows in wavy horizontal lines nearly to the base. Manufactured using the core-forming technique, the vessel also includes applied rim-disk and handles, and applied marvered and unmarvered threads. Vertical indentations on the body are the result of tooling the zigzag decoration.

Published ReferencesGrose, 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. 79, p. 138, repr. (col.) p. 97.Comparative ReferencesSee also von Saldern, Axel, et al., Gläser Der Antike, Sammlung Oppenländer, Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1974, fig. 166, pp. 67-68.