Roman Levant Pattern-Molded Glass Flask | Drip Sprinkler Neck, Iridescence

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean. A globular blown-glass flask with a broad, funnel-shaped rim folded outward above a slender neck, the body swelling into a near-spherical bowl. Inside the neck is a diaphragm, an internal disk pierced by a single small hole that let the contents out drop by drop, marking this as a sprinkler for perfumed oil or another costly liquid. Faint spiral ribbing wraps the body. It was made by blowing the gather into a ribbed mold, withdrawing it, and then expanding and twisting the still-soft glass so the ribs wind around the curve. Burial has left the pale green glass with silver and gold iridescence and earthen encrustation. Pattern-molded sprinklers like this were produced in quantity in workshops of the Roman Near East. The sprinkler flask, or unguentarium with internal diaphragm, is one of the more ingenious products of Roman glassblowing. The pierced disk at the base of the neck was formed by constricting the tube and collapsing the glass inward, leaving an orifice only a millimeter or two wide. Inverted, the vessel released perfume in measured drops rather than a pour, an economy that mattered when a flask of balsam or nard could be worth many times the glass that held it. Mold-blown production in the Roman Near East, centered on the workshops of Roman Syria and the Levantine coast, industrialized this class of vessel from the 1st century CE onward. By the 3rd and 4th centuries the decorative repertoire had simplified: the elaborate figural and inscribed molds of the early Imperial period gave way to purely abstract effects such as the twisted flutes seen here, achieved by a mold that shaped the ribs and a wrist that turned them. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205113

Estimate:£168.19

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