Glass cylindrical bottle

Roman

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 169

Translucent pale green; handle and trail in same color.
Rounded rim to broad, shallow, flaring mouth; cylindrical neck with concave profile; sloping shoulder with bulging edge that extends beyond side of body; cylindrical body with straight side, tapering slightly downwards, with rounded edge to concave bottom; broad, four-ribbed strap handle, applied to edge of shoulder, drawn vertically upwards, then turned in and down, and trailed onto top of neck and over trail decoration, ending on rim.
On body, four registers of cut and abraded decoration: at top on bulge to shoulder, irregular horizontal row of small abraded cuts; three sets of two roughly parallel horizontal lines flank and separate the two main registers on the side, comprising a horizontal row of 18 large circular facets and, below, a band of 11 vertical lines, each with horizontal bars across their top and bottom, linked and intersected by a continuous horizontal line at their mid-points, where there are abraded diamond shapes filled with irregular cross hatching, the pattern thus forms a series of crosses and squares, each panel of which is filled with a large oval facet; below the bottom two parallel lines, another irregular horizontal row of abraded cuts, some small and others vertical ovals.
Intact, except for a small weathered chip in rim; pinprick and larger bubbles; dulling, creamy weathering, and iridescence.

Bottles like this one were used as tableware in later Roman times, presumably for serving wine. Examples are known from the Rhineland, from Pannonia (modern Hungary) on the Danube, and from Syria and Egypt in the East. They therefore may be taken to represent the universal style of the late Roman elite, who traveled widely and freely across the Empire.

Glass cylindrical bottle, Glass, Roman

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