alabastron;
flask
- Museum number
- 1894,1101.55
- Description
-
Mediterranean Group 3 glass alabastron or perfume flask.
Opaque white trails, translucent cobalt blue body and lug-handles.
Horizontal rim-disc with tool-marks on upper and under surfaces; short, cylindrical neck with downward taper; pronounced angular shoulder; tall, slender, straight-sided body with wide expansion downward to sharp basal angle; shallow, convex bottom. Two ring-handles with well-formed, pointed tails.
Continuous white marvered trail dropped on at rim, whence it descends in sloping line to level of lugs; from here to the carination the trail changes to a pattern of upright festoons in eleven vertical stripes; below carination it winds in a thick, fourfold spiral to end in a fine thickened curl on bottom.
Core-formed; rim-disc and handles trailed on and tooled, the handles formed by drawing upward from a drop-on at bottom and folding inward over a tool to make the ring. Handles dropped on and coiled.
Intact. Hole in body just above carination, occurring during manufacture, has been filled in by the glassmaker with drop-on of blue glass, from which a long thin tail runs upward to level of lugs. Film of milky weathering on one side; other largely retains pristine sheen.
- Production date
- 300BC-50BC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 3.80 centimetres (max;body)
-
Height: 13.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- BM Glass
Similar maker's repairs exist on BM Glass 371 (GR 1894.11-1.346) and on an alabastron of group 2 in the museum at St Louis, Mo. (seen in 1971).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1894
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1894,1101.55
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: DBH.0117 (Harden number)
