ROMAN GLASS FLASK
Ca. 100-300 AD.
A glass flask with a spherical body, a short funnel-shaped neck and a wide, flanged profile mouth. Some weathering and incrustation occur throughout the flask; the outside shows a beautiful iridescence. At the height of its popularity and usefulness in Rome, glass was present in nearly every aspect of daily life from a lady's morning toilette to a merchant's afternoon business dealings to the evening 'cena' (dinner). Glass was often the preferred material for storing toilette oils, perfumes, and medicines in antiquity because it was not porous. These glass vessels are found frequently at Hellenistic and Roman sites, and the liquids which filled them (perfumes, oils, medicines) would have been gathered from all corners of the expansive Roman Empire. To find out more about glass objects in the Roman world, Bayley, J., Freestone, I., & Jackson, C. (2015). Glass of the Roman World. Oxford And Philadelphia: Oxbow Books.
Size: L:70mm / W:60mm ; 40g
Provenance: Private UK collection; From an old London collection formed in the 1990s.
Estimate: GBP 150 - 300