Bottle

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Object Name: 
Bottle
Place Made: 
probably Eastern Mediterranean
Accession Number: 
98.1.97
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 21.3 cm, Diam (max): 9.9 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
99-1 BCE
Credit Line: 
Purchased with the assistance of the Clara S. Peck Endowment Fund
Web Description: 
This tubular bottle with a lug handle was made of one colorless and two translucent deep blue elements that were cast separately, then partly ground and polished. These elements were then assembled and fused, and the surface was finished by grinding and polishing. The bottle is a great rarity. No precise parallel for the form is known in glass, although smaller, more slender vessels, also of colorless and deep blue glass, are in the British Museum and the archeological museum at Nicosia, Cyprus. The same color scheme occurs in bowls in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and other collections.

More Info

Department: 
Ancient
Provenance: 
Railways Pension Trustee Company Limited, Source
1998-02-06
Category: 
Origins of Glassmaking
Color: 
deep blue
colorless
Technique: 
casting
grinding
fusing
polishing
Material: 
glass

Description

Primary Description: 
Bottle. Translucent deep blue and colorless glass with yellowish tinge; sagged or cast in three pieces, individual pieces ground then fused, complete object ground and polished. Alabastron with narrow body and one handle; upper part is blue, central part colorless, and lower part blue. Rim is narrow flange with flat upper surface and rounded edge; neck short, cylindrical; shoulder narrow, with rounded edge; wall descends almost vertically, then flares to greatest diameter below mid point, and tapers; base plain, slightly concave. Handle, probably cast, is semicircular loop with thick rectangular cross section, attached to edge of shoulder and upper wall; on inside of handle, wall has faint horizontal groove.

Publications (9)

Pergamon and the Hellenistic kingdoms of the ancient world (2016) illustrated, p. 262; BIB# 144264
The illustrated encyclopedia of glass (2011) illustrated, p. 9; BIB# 128671
The Encyclopedia of Glass (2001) illustrated, p. 10; BIB# 69319
The Corning Museum of Glass: A Decade of Glass Collecting 1990-1999 (2000) illustrated, pp. 11-12, #2; BIB# 65446
Recent Important Acquisitions, 41 (1999) illustrated, p. 177, #1; BIB# AI43981
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 1998 (1999) illustrated, pp. 8-9; BIB# AI95009
Newsletter of The Decorative Arts Society, Inc. (1999) p. 16; BIB# 38380
Treasures from The Corning Museum of Glass: Checklist of the Exhibition (1999) illustrated, p. 13; BIB# 63967
Treasures from The Corning Museum of Glass: 32 Ready-to-Mail Full-Color Postcards (1998) illustrated, #2; BIB# 61155