5. Roman marbled perfume flask, Eastern Mediterranean or Italy, 1st century AD
Glass
Height: 20.8cm
11439 IVP
£ 18,000.00
Further images
Free-blown in translucent pale blue and opaque white marbled glass. Of a particularly elegant form, this unguentarium, or alabastron, has a bubble-like body, with a long, drawn-out base terminating in...
Free-blown in translucent pale blue and opaque white marbled glass. Of a particularly elegant form, this unguentarium, or alabastron, has a bubble-like body, with a long, drawn-out base terminating in a rounded point, the tall cylindrical neck with an everted rim. Intact.
This colour combination is extremely rare, even more so in this form. The vase would have contained a precious perfume.
Provenance
Sheppard & Cooper Ltd, London, UK; before February 1994Anonymous Sale; Christie's, London, 3rd July 1996
Private collection, the Netherlands; acquired from the above
Exhibitions
Allard Pierson Museum of Antiquities, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, "Antiek Glas, de Kunst van Het Vuur", 17th May-16th September 2001, exhibition no.36Museum Dordts Patriciërshuis, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, "Glas Door de Eeuwen Heen", 11th April-11th November 2018
Literature
For an example in amber-yellow and opaque white glass see Susan Matheson, Ancient Glass in the Yale University Art Gallery (Yale, 1980), no.65Publications
Sheppard & Cooper Ltd, Glass. The Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World (London, 1994), p.5, no.27Christie's, London, Fine Antiquities, 3rd July 1996, lot 280
J. v.d. Groen & H. van Rossum, Romeins Glas uit Particulier Bezit (Utrecht, 2011), p.64
