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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Glass / Hellenistic Core-Formed Glass Alabastron Base | Feathered Trail Decoration
Eastern Mediterranean, Greek, Hellenistic period. A miniature survival from the workshops that made glass before glassblowing existed: the cylindrical lower body and splayed disc foot of a core formed vessel, likely an alabastron. Opaque cobalt glass forms the matrix, wrapped with pale yellow and white trails that were marvered flush and then dragged with a pointed tool into the tight feathered festoons running around the wall. The foot spreads into a wide, slightly concave pad of deep blue, its underside still carrying the swirl of the hot gather. Sealed at the break, the fragment now reads as a small closed form with the opening at the rounded upper end. Such perfume and unguent flasks were formed around a friable clay and dung core, raked out once the glass had cooled. Core forming is the oldest sustained glassworking technique, in use across the Eastern Mediterranean from the mid second millennium BCE and revived around the sixth century for small luxury containers of scented oil. A core of clay, sand, and organic binder was shaped on a metal rod, coated in molten glass by dipping or by winding hot trails, then decorated with contrasting threads that were rolled smooth on a flat stone (marvering) and combed into zigzags, festoons, or feather patterns while still plastic. Handles, rims, and feet were applied last. Scholars divide the tradition into three Mediterranean groups. Group I (roughly 6th to 4th century BCE) alabastra characteristically taper to a rounded or pointed base, sometimes with small lug handles. Group II, conventionally dated to the 4th through 1st centuries BCE, introduces the applied disc or splayed pad foot seen here, a change that let the vessel stand unaided on a table rather than rest in a stand or a hand. The wide foot on this fragment is the diagnostic feature placing it in the later, Hellenistic horizon. Item # 205133
Estimate:£226.18
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Estimate:
£226.18
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GÖRAN WÄRFF. GLASSKULPTUR, KOSTA BODA, SIGNERAD.
09/29/2026
£105.14
Est: £75.74
