Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes

DateLate sixth through fifth centuries BCE

DimensionsH: 3 13/16 in. (9.7 cm): Diam: 1 5/16 in. (3.3 cm): Max Diam of Body: 1 5/16 in. (3.4 cm)

MediumCore-formed; applied rim-disk and handles; applied marvered and unmarvered threads. Vertical indentations on the body caused by the tooling of the zigzags.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.336

Not on View

DescriptionAlabastron. Blue ground with opaque yellow (appearing orangish) and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Broad horizontal rim-disk, asymmetrical, with the jagged edge of the lip rising above the level of the rim-disk; vestigial cylindrical neck; rounded shoulder; almost cylindrical, straight-sided body with upward taper; uneven, shallow convex bottom. Below the shoulder, two blue vertical ring handles with knobbed tails. An unmarvered opaque turquoise-blue thread attached at the edge of the rim-disk; an opaque yellow thread, marvered, begun on the underside of the rim and wound spirally, at first in almost horizontal lines, then tooled into a close-set, shallow zigzag pattern to below the middle of the body, where an opaque turquoise-blue thread is added, mingling with the yellow; below this, a second opaque yellow thread, partly marvered, is wound horizontally twice around the body.

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. 71, p. 135, repr.