Lot 152

1st-3rd C. Roman Glass Bottles - Pair of Free-Blown Vessels

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Lot 152
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1st-3rd C. Roman Glass Bottles - Pair of Free-Blown Vessels
1st-3rd C. Roman Glass Bottles - Pair of Free-Blown Vessels
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1st-3rd C. Roman Glass Bottles - Pair of Free-Blown Vessels

Estimate: $700 - $1,000

Current Bid: $350

(1 Bid)
by Artemis Fine Arts
August 6, 2026 9:00 AM MDT
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Roman, Imperial period, ca. 1–300 CE. A pair of free-blown glass vessels surviving from the Roman Imperial world, each a study in the quiet elegance of the ancient glassblower's craft. The taller stands as a slender bottle with a swelling body, tapering neck, and outward-flaring rim, while its companion is a squat, near-spherical flask crowned by a broad everted lip. Both were shaped from naturally tinted glass, once translucent and now veiled in the milky iridescence and earthen encrustation that centuries of burial confer. Such small containers, likely intended for perfumed oils, unguents, or cosmetics, were ubiquitous across the Empire, gracing the dressing tables of the living and accompanying the dead into the tomb. Their gentle asymmetries betray the human breath and turning hand that gave them form, a signature of the age when glass became an everyday luxury. Size of taller: 1.4" D x 3.3" H (3.6 cm D x 8.4 cm H).

The invention of glassblowing in the mid-first century BCE, likely along the Syro-Palestinian coast, transformed glass from a costly rarity into an affordable staple of Roman domestic life. Free-blowing, in which molten glass is gathered on a hollow iron and inflated by the maker's breath, allowed vessels to be produced quickly and in great variety. Small bottles of this type, often called unguentaria, held the scented oils and salves integral to Roman bathing, grooming, and funerary ritual. The lustrous, flaking iridescence prized by collectors is not original but a product of chemical weathering, as moisture leaches alkali from the glass surface over the long centuries underground.

Provenance: private Marysville, Washington, USA collection; ex-private Seattle, Washington, USA collection, acquired 1970-2000 via US and online auctions

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Item # 204058

  • Condition: Expected weathering film to surfaces, but, otherwise, both are intact and excellent with scattered iridescence.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000