Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginReportedly found in Italy

DateMid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE

DimensionsH: 7 2/3 in. (19.5 cm); Diam: 2 15/16 in. (7.5 cm)

MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1967.3

Not on View

DescriptionTall alabastron. Golden-brown ground with opaque yellow and opaque pale blue (appearing opaque white in places) decoration. Broad horizontal rim-disk, sloping very slightly to the outside; cylindrical neck tapering downward; short, almost right-angled shoulder; straight-sided cylindrical body with upward taper; convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two vertical golden-brown ring handles. An unmarvered opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a second opaque yellow thread, marvered, begun on the shoulder and wound spirally, at first in a single wavy horizontal line, then tooled into a widely spaced, carefully formed feather pattern arranged in seven vertical panels, extending from the shoulder to the basal angle; at the handle zone a marvered opaque pale blue thread is added, mingling with the yellow thread in alternating bands to the basal angle; the seven vertical panels end in loops.

Published ReferencesThe Toledo Museum of Art, Art in Glass: A Guide to the Glass Collections, Toledo, OH, 1969, p. 18, ill.

"Treasures for Toledo" Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 12, 1969, p. 92, ill.

Hayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. 13.

Grose, David F., "Ancient Glass," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 20, no. 3, 1978, p. 68 and cover.

Grose, David F., "The Origins and Early History of Glass," in The History of Glass, eds. Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, London, 1984, p. 17, ill.

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. 122, p. 152, repr. (col.) p. 100.