Unguent Bottle (Alabastron)

Place of OriginEastern Mediterranean, possibly from Rhodes, Greece

DateLate 6th - 5th century BCE

DimensionsH: 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm); Rim Diam: 1 3/8 in. (3.5 cm); Diam: 1 in. (2.5 cm)

Mediumglass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.156

Not on View

DescriptionThis small alabastron has an opaque white ground with purple decoration. It features a broad, horizontal rim-disk that is asymmetrical and uneven on both its upper and lower surfaces. The short cylindrical neck leads into a pronounced, round-angled shoulder and an uneven cylindrical body. The base is convex and flat on one side. Below the shoulder are two unusual applied handles, each composed of two contiguous spherical blobs of opaque yellow glass. Each blob is wound with a thin translucent blue (or blue-green) thread and topped with an opaque white tail drawn upward from the body. An unmarvered purple thread is attached at the edge of the rim-disk. A second purple thread, marvered, begins on the neck and is wound spirally, almost covering the entire neck and shoulder, before being tooled into a close-set zigzag pattern that continues to below the middle of the body. Beneath this, a third unmarvered thread is wound almost horizontally three times around the lower body. The vessel is core-formed, with an applied rim-disk and applied, tooled handles, as well as applied marvered and unmarvered threads.

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

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. 68, p.134, repr. (col.) p. 96.

Arts, P.L.W., Arts, P.L.W., "A Collection of Ancient Glass 500 BC - 500 AD," ANTIEK Lochem, 2000, p. 82.