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Glass Unguentarium
Circa 1st-2nd Century AD
Description: Well provenanced beautiful green free-blown unguentarium from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The vessel has a low pear-shaped body with a tall slender offset neck, flat mouth and folded-over rim. The underside is concave with pontil mark. Made of dark, once transparent, iridescent glass with small circular air bubbles. Over the entire surface is a thick gold-beige layer with noticeable iridescence of silver, blue, purple, gold and light green. Unguentaria were the earliest shape of free-blown glass vessels throughout the Roman Empire. Probably called "ampulla" in antiquity, these all-purpose vessels were the easiest and most practical to make, as they needed very little tooling. Only the flared rim required reheating to achieve its design.
Height: 5.1 in. (12.7 cm)
Condition: Intact.
Provenance: The vessel was formerly in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acquired in 1947 as a gift from the collection of Mrs. J. Templeman Coolidge. On the underside in red is a museum number: R. 47.71.
Reference: See Ancient Glass in the Hermitage Collection (St. Petersburg 1997) by Nina Kunina, no. 362, illustration 178 (color plate) for a similar example in the Hermitage collection.
Background: These commonly used vessels were thought to carry primarily unguents, but are also believed to have carried scented oils, cosmetics, pigments, salves, medicines and dried herbs.
Price: SOLD
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