Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)
Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean or Italy
Date4th-3rd century BCE
Dimensions5 1/8 × 1 1/8 × 1 in. (13 × 2.9 × 2.5 cm)
Mediumglass
ClassificationGlass
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number
1916.56
Not on View
DescriptionThis unguent bottle is core-formed (alabastron); applied rim-disk and lugs; applied marvered threads. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Moderately broad horizontal rim-disk, uneven and sloping slightly to the outside on one side; wide, rather tall cylindrical neck with slight bulge at its middle; short, pronounced right-angled shoulder with a tooled constriction on the neck; straight-sided cylindrical body with slight upward taper; convex bottom. On the upper body, two small cobalt-blue lugs, each with a depression on its upper surface. An opaque turquoise-blue thread and an opaque yellow thread, both marvered, begun at the shoulder and wound spirally in a wavy line, then tooled in alternating bands into a widely spaced feather pattern extending to the basal angle. Almost complete, with slight iridescence and pitting.
Published References"Early Egyptian Glass," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 19, 1917, p. 352.
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. 137, p. 158.
4th-3rd century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
4th-early 3rd century BCE
4th-3rd century BCE
mid 4th-early 3rd centuries BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
Mid-4th through early 3rd centuries BCE
Mid-fourth through early third centuries BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
2nd through mid-1st century BCE
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