Unguent Bottle (Oinochoe)

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Unguent Bottle (Oinochoe)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes

DateProbably first half of 5th century BCE

DimensionsH: 3 11/16 in. (9.4 cm); Rim Diam: 15/16 in. (2.4 cm); Diam: 2 1/8 in. (5.4 cm); Base Diam: 1 in. (2.5 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.134

Not on View

DescriptionOinochoe. Cobalt-blue ground with opaque yellow and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Broad but thin trefoil rim-disk; narrow cylindrical neck; obtuse-angled junction with straight shoulder; ovoid body; convex bottom; outsplayed cobalt-blue foot, unusually even and symmetrical, concave on its underside. A cobalt-blue strap handle extends from the shoulder to the rim-disk; the handle arches well above the rim-disk. A partly marvered, narrow opaque yellow thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; a second broad opaque yellow thread, marvered, wound horizontally around the top of the neck; a third opaque yellow thread, marvered, begun on the neck and wound spirally in almost horizontal lines around the neck and shoulder (only the impressions of the threads now remain), then tooled into a zigzag pattern that is largely covered by a wide, marvered opaque turquoise-blue thread, also in a zigzag pattern, that is added around the middle of the body; below this, an opaque yellow and an opaque turquoise-blue thread, both marvered, are each wound horizontally once around the body; a marvered opaque yellow thread is wound around the edge of the foot. Core-formed; applied rim-disk, handle, and foot; applied marvered and unmarvered threads. Vertical indentations on the body caused by the tooling of the zigzags.

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. 118, p. 151, repr. (col.) p. 99.Comparative ReferencesSee also Fossing, Paul, Glass Vessels Before Glass Blowing, Copenhagen, 1940, pp. 42-85. Cf. Dusenberry, Elsbeth B., "Ancient Glass from the Cemetenes of Samothrace," JOURNAL OF GLASS STUDIES, Vol. 9, 1967, nos. 1-2. Cf. von Saldern, Axel, et al., Gläser der Antike, Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer, Hamburg, 1974, no. 115-221. Cf. Hayes, John W., Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1975, nos. 4-19.