Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly Rhodes

DateLate 6th - 5th century BCE

DimensionsH: 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm); Rim Diam: 1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm); Diam: 1 in. (2.5 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.156

Not on View

DescriptionSmall alabastron. Opaque white ground with purple decoration. Broad horizontal rim-disk, asymmetrical and uneven on its upper- and undersides; short cylindrical neck; pronounced round-angled shoulder; uneven cylindrical body; convex bottom, flat on one side. Below the shoulder, two unusual handles, both comprised of two applied, contiguous spherical blobs of opaque yellow glass, each wound with a thin translucent blue (or blue-green) thread, with an opaque white tail drawn out and upward from the body. An unmarvered purple thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a wide second thread, marvered, begun on the neck (almost covering the entire neck and shoulder) and wound spirally, at first in almost horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern to below the middle of the body; below this, a third thread, unmarvered, is wound almost horizontally three times around the body. Core-formed glass; applied rim-disk; applied and tooled handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads.

Published ReferencesHayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. II.

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. 68, p.134, repr. (col.) p. 96.

Arts, P.L.W., Arts, P.L.W., "A Collection of Ancient Glass 500 BC - 500 AD," ANTIEK Lochem, 2000, p. 82.