Unguent Bottle (Footed Jar)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean or Italy

Date3rd century BCE

DimensionsH: 3 1/2 in. (8.9 cm); Rim Diam: 15/16 in. (2.4 cm); Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.3 cm)

MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk, handles, and foot; applied marvered threads. Short vertical indentations on the shoulder caused by the tooling of the zigzags.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.334

Not on View

DescriptionUnguentarium. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque yellow (appearing orangish) and opaque white decoration. Short, uneven horizontal rim-disk, with a rounded edge; tall cylindrical neck; broad, almost right-angled shoulder; ovoid body; pointed bottom; tall cobalt-blue outsplayed foot, with a small depression on its flat underside. Below the shoulder, two upright, circular cobalt-blue disk handles below the shoulder, each folded upward in half. A marvered opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk, encircling half of it; a marvered opaque white thread, with a second marvered opaque yellow thread, begun on the neck and wound diagonally in wavy, almost horizontal lines to the shoulder, then tooled into a few zigzags around the middle of the body, and finally wound around the lower body in almost horizontal lines; the opaque white thread continues diagonally to the bottom, where it disappears beneath the foot.

Published ReferencesHayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, p. 14.

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. 161, p. 167, repr. (col.) p. 106.