Octagonal Bottle with Jewish or Muslim Symbols

Object Name: 
Octagonal Bottle with Jewish or Muslim Symbols

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Object Name: 
Octagonal Bottle with Jewish or Muslim Symbols
Accession Number: 
50.1.34
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 10.3 cm; Body W: 10.1 cm; Rim Diam: 6.1 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
about 630-700
Primary Description: 
Octagonal Bottle with Jewish or Muslim Symbols. Translucent dark brown glass; mold-blown, tooled. Broad octagonal body, rim horizontal, outsplayed, folded upward and inward to narrow reworked mouth; short neck which tapers, then splays to merge with wide sloping shoulder; octagonal body with vertical side; flat base, rough pontil scar. Mold-blown decoration on all sides of body; on each side, sunken panel with frame of small depressions containing, clockwise: (1) menorah with tripod foot, shofar below; (2) stylized tree with depressions in angles of frame; (3) amphora; (4) not identified; (5) two concentric lozenges with central depression, and depressions in corners of frame; (6) stylized tree; (7) stylized palm (?) tree; (8) aedicula with schematic capitals and column bases, containing tree-like motif.
Department: 
Provenance: 
Steuben Glass, Inc., Source
1950-10-01
Morgan, J. Pierpont (American, 1937-1913), Former Collection
Category: 
Color: 
Material: 
Title Unknown (The Metropolitan Museum of Art-Morgan Collection)
Venue(s)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Venue(s)
Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014-12-09 through 2015-04-13
Corning Museum of Glass 2015-05-16 through 2016-01-04
At the end of the first century B.C., glassmakers working in the environs of Jerusalem made a revolutionary breakthrough in the way glass was made. They discovered that glass could be inflated at the end of a hollow tube. This technical achievement—glassblowing—made the production of glass vessels much quicker and easier, and allowed glassmakers to develop new shapes and decorative techniques. One technique, inflating glass in molds carved with decorative and figural designs, was used to create multiple examples of a variety of vessel shapes with high-relief patterns. The molds used to shape this ancient glass were complex in their design, and the mold-blown glass vessels of ancient Rome tell a wealth of stories about the ancient world, from gladiators to perfume vessels, from portraits of a Roman empress to oil containers marked with the image of Mercury, Roman god of trade. Among the earliest workshops to design and create mold-blown glass was one in which a man named Ennion worked. Ennion was the first glassmaker to sign his glass objects by incorporating his name into the inscriptions that formed part of the mold’s design, and thus he stands among a small group of glass workers whose names have come down to us from antiquity. On view through January, 4, 2016, Ennion and His Legacy, is composed of mold-blown master works by Ennion and other Roman glassmakers. The works are drawn from the Corning Museum’s collection of Roman glass, one of the finest in the world. Within the larger exhibit is a smaller exhibit organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, which focuses specifically on works made by Ennion. Composed of loans from a number of international institutions and private collections this exhibit within an exhibit brings together many of the known examples of Ennion’s wares and will be on view through October 19, 2015.
 
Glass of the Caesars
Venue(s)
British Museum 1987-11-18 through 1988-03-06
Romisch-Germanisches Museum 1988-04-15 through 1988-10-18
Musei Capitolini 1988-11-03 through 1989-01-31
Corning Museum of Glass
Ancient and Islamic Glass: Selections from the Corning Museum of Glass (2019) illustrated, pp. 96-97;
Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, Volume Two (2001) illustrated, pp. 103-104, pl. 596; BIB# 58895
Bayt Al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam (1999) illustrated, p. 146 (fig. 36);
A Short History of Glass (1990 edition) (1990) illustrated, p. 33, #27; BIB# 33211
Glass of the Caesars (1987) illustrated, p. 177, #98; BIB# 31831
A Short History of Glass (1980 edition) (1980) illustrated, p. 32, #26 (lower left); BIB# 21161
Forgeries and Reproductions of Ancient Glass in Corning (1977) illustrated, pp. 56-57, fig. 40; BIB# AI90923
The Story of Glass (1953) illustrated, plate 12-13 (fig. j); BIB# 25461