ANCIENT ROMAN GLASS FLASK
Ca. 100-300 AD.
A beautiful glass flask with a bulbous body with an attractive rainbow iridescence, a flaring cylindrical neck, and a wide mouth with a slightly everted rim. Good condition. While glass-making had been practised for centuries, the Romans invented the glassblowing technique in the 1st century BC, which revolutionized this craft. Roman glassmakers reached incredible artistic heights with both free-blown vessels and mould blown forms and decorations. Flasks such as this one where used in Roman times to serve liquids and archaeological excavations show that they had an Empire-wide distribution (see Bayley, J., Freestone, I., & Jackson, C. (2015). Glass of the Roman World. Oxford And Philadelphia: Oxbow Books). 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:210mm / W:110mm ; 205g
Provenance: Private London collection since the 1990.
Estimate: GBP 100 - 200