Roman Miniature Handled Glass Unguent Jug | Thumbed Ribbon Handle

Roman, Imperial period. A miniature free-blown jug of translucent blue-green glass, its globular body drawn up into a slender cylindrical neck and finished with a broad, outfolded disc rim. A single ribbon handle was applied while the glass was hot, drawn from the shoulder and pressed against the rim with a thumbed attachment that still shows the glassworker’s tooling. The aqua tint comes naturally from iron in the sand rather than from added color. Burial has left silvery iridescence and earthen encrustation across the surface. Small vessels like this held perfumed oils, unguents and cosmetics, dispensed in small measures, and were used at the dressing table and placed in tombs. Supplied with a custom display stand. The invention of glassblowing in the Syro-Palestinian region around the middle of the 1st century BCE transformed glass from a luxury for the few into an everyday material across the Roman world. Where core-forming and casting had demanded days of labor per vessel, a blower could shape a juglet like this one in minutes, and workshops from Sidon to Cologne turned out unguentaria, flasks, and jugs by the thousand. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century CE, remarked on the speed and cheapness of the new craft. The iridescent bloom admired on ancient glass today is a product of decay rather than design: alkali leaches from the surface during long burial, leaving microscopically thin layers that refract light into shifting silver, gold, and violet sheens the Roman owner never saw. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205129

Estimation:€178.3

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