74. Roman trefoiled-lipped bottle with trailing, 1st century AD
Glass
Height: 7.3cm
11266 IVP
Free-blown in clear, cobalt-blue glass. Extremely light and thin-walled, the globular body is decorated with a fine spiral of trail in the same cobalt-blue glass, the conical neck terminates in...
Free-blown in clear, cobalt-blue glass.
Extremely light and thin-walled, the globular
body is decorated with a fine spiral of trail in
the same cobalt-blue glass, the conical neck
terminates in a trefoil lip. Intact, a small crack
to the lower part of the body, the surface with
scattered patches of incrustation and purple-
blue iridescence.
The trefoil lip on this bottle makes it a rare form.
Provenance
Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819-1899), St. Nicholas-les-Arras, France; collection no.99Bellon was one of the greatest French collectors of the 19th century. Making his fortune in the textile industry, he began to buy and collect archaeological pieces from the Mediterranean world. Until the end of the 1870s, he accompanied Auguste Ternick in archaeological excavations in the Arras region. It was there that he discovered the Gallo-Roman glassworks which subsequently constituted the most important part of his collection. His collection gained notoriety during the retrospective exhibition of French Art which took place at the Trocadéro in 1896, alongside those of Auguste Dutuit and the Protat printers. Today, part of the collection is kept at the Museum of National Antiquities of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Petit Palais in Paris, the Louvre Museum, and the Berck-sur-Mer museum.
Literature
Compare Chris S. Lightfoot, Ancient Glass in National Museums Scotland (Edinburgh, 2007), no.377, pp.150-151
