Roman Glass Bottle with Flaring Rim

£ 300.00

A beautifully blown Ancient Roman glass bottle, featuring a flattened base, a cylindrical body, short neck and a wide flaring rim. The vessel has been blown in the typical pale blue-green colour of Roman glass vessels and displays a mother of pearl like iridescence.

Date: Circa 2nd-3rd century AD
Provenance: From a private Japanese collection, 1972-2010.
Condition: Extremely fine with signs of aging and earthly encrustations to the surface. Beautiful mother of pearl like iridescence on the surface.

SOLD

Product Code: RGS-42
Category: Tag:

The Romans loved glass for its practical as well as decorative uses. Glass bottles, such as this beautiful example, were used as containers for ointments, powders, balms, and other expensive liquids associated with the toilet, especially perfumes: the small mouth of the bottle is ideal for slow, careful pouring, while glass was preferred for holding liquids, due to its non-porous, non-absorbent nature. Glass vessels are found frequently at Hellenistic and Roman sites, especially in cemeteries, and the liquids that filled them would have been gathered from all corners of the expansive Roman Empire.

To learn more about Roman glass, visit our relevant post: How It Was Made: Roman Glass.

Dimensions H 8 cm
Glass

Blown Glass

Region

Southern Europe

Reference: For a similar item, The Metropolitan Museum, item 81.10.57.

You may also like…