cosmetic-dish
- Museum number
- EA65774
- Description
-
Monochrome toilet dish in the form of a clam shell: the dish is of translucent turquoise-blue glass, and was certainly moulded. Its walls are thin, the edges sharp, and the glass almost transparent.
- Dimensions
-
Length: 12.50 centimetres
-
Weight: 46 grammes
-
Width: 2.10 centimetres
-
Depth: 6.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This shape was already known in stone in the Old Kingdom but it became very popular in Egyptian blue and in faience during the late Eighteenth Dynasty. Examples in glass, however, are rare, only three others being known and one of these may be faience. Preserved intact but scattered areas turned white to grey. In other media this shape is usually restricted to scribal use as a container of red and black ink.
Bibliography:
A. Nesbitt, 'Catalogue of the Collection of Glass formed by Felix Slade' (1871), 47, no. 297 where the shell is described as a scoop of blown glass of Roman date;
B. Nolte, ‘Die Glasgefässe in Alten Ägypten (Berlin 1968), 138, pl. XXIX, 7.
Nicholson and Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (Cambridge 2000), p. 202
- Location
- On display (G2/wp16)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2014 Oct 14 - London, BM, G2, 'Collecting the World'
- Condition
- good
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA65774
- Registration number
- .65774