CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.

Details

TWO BYZANTINE GLASS VESSELS
CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.
Including a tall beaker, pale blue-green in color, free blown, conical in form, on a flaring hollow foot, the rim outsplayed, the body with a horizontal chain pattern formed of pinched undulating ribs; and a bottle, pale green in color, free blown, globular in form, on a kicked base, constricting at the neck and flaring into a long cylindrical mouth, the rim rounded, with a series of eleven pinched nubs arranged horizontally, and five internal trapped threads running from near the base to the shoulders
Beaker: 7 3/8 in. (18.7 cm.) high
Bottle: 5 in. (12.7 cm.) high (2)

Provenance

Beaker: with Sheppard & Cooper, London, 1994.
Bottle: with Sheppard & Cooper, London, 1994 (Glass, The Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World, no. 84).

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Lot Essay

For the chain pattern see no. 189 in Stern, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE-700 CE, Ernesto Wolf Collection. For a bottle with internal trapped threads see no. 158 in Auth, Ancient Glass at the Newark Museum, where the author describes the technique as the "glassblower's whimsy" that was created by "jabbing the glass bubble at intervals with a sharp implement before inflating."

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