Kohl Tube

Place of OriginEgypt

DateLate 18th or 19th Century (1400-1225 BCE)

DimensionsH: 3 3/4 in.; Diam: 1 1/4 in.; Max Diam (body): 13/16 in.

MediumRod-formed; applied rim-disk; applied marvered and unmarvered threads.

ClassificationGlass

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

Object number

1967.2

Not on View

DescriptionKohl tube in the form of a palm column. Opaque medium blue ground, with opaque white, opaque yellow (appearing orangish), and opaque turquoise-blue decoration. Moderately broad rim-disk, tapering slightly inward, with eight rounded projecting fronds; tall cylindrical body, tapering slightly upward, its lip extending above the rim-disk; slightly rounded bottom. A partly marvered opaque yellow thread wound around the lip of the tube; another marvered opaque yellow thread attached to the outer edges of the fronds of the rim-disk; another partly marvered opaque yellow thread begun at the top of the body and wound spirally six times in horizontal lines; extending vertically from the uppermost of these thread sto the outer tip of each frond are single unmarvered opaque white threads; below this, a marvered opaque white thread is begun and tooled into a feather pattern from the middle of the body to the bottom; mingling with it at the top, center, and bottom are a few marvered threads of opaque yellow and opaque turquoise blue, also tooled into a feather pattern; an opaque white thread, unmarvered, is wound horizontally just above the junction of the side and bottom. Rod-formed rather than core-formed.

Published ReferencesSangiorgi, Giorgio, Collezione di vetri antichi dalle origini al V secolo D.C. ordinati e descritti da Giorgio Sangiorgi con prefazione di W. Froehner, Rome, 1914, no. 4, pl. 3.

Nolte, Birgit, Die Glasgefasse im alten Aegypten, Munchner Aeqyptologische Studien, no. 14, Berlin, 1968, pp. 141 and 149, no. 50, pl. 34.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Art in Glass: A Guide to the Glass Collections, Toledo, OH, 1969, p. 16, ill.

Gunther, Charles F. "How Glass is Made," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 15, no. 1, 1972, p. 14, ill.

Grose, David F., "Ancient Glass," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 20, no. 3, 1978. pp. 70-71, fig 2.

Grose, David F., "Innovation and change in ancient technologies: The anomalous case of the Roman glass industry," in High-technology Ceramics, Westerville, OH, 1986, pp. 66-67, fig. 1.

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. 11, p. 62, repr. (col.) p. 42, drawing, p. 397.