Objects
An ancient paritally-transparent glass vessel with a long narrow neck and a wider round base. It is tinted green with some brownish-gold flecks of worn paint.

Unguentarium (perfume bottle)

2nd c. CEglass7 15/16 in. × 2 9/16 in. (20.2 cm. × 6.5 cm.)

Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker

1894.19

Unguentaria were small glass and ceramic vessels used for dispensing oils, medicines, ointments, and other precious commodities in antiquity. Beginning in the Roman period, when blown-glass technology became widespread, these vessels were more often made of glass. The long neck and small opening aided in controlling the pouring of precious contents, which could be used during daily dressing or in funerary rites. This example, with its green color, squat and bulbous base, and elongated neck, is characteristic of types that dominated beginning in the second century CE in the eastern Mediterranean. Similar vessels were produced in both Cyprus and the coast of Roman Syria. 

This vessel is one of thirty-seven glass vessels donated by the sisters Mary Sophia (1839–1904) and Harriet Sarah Walker (1844–1898), on the completion of the Walker Art Building in 1894.  The success of the project was indebted to the sisters’ vision of a building devoted “solely to art purposes,” their selection of the architect Charles McKim, and their deep involvement with every aspect of the building’s design. Recognizing the need for art objects of exceptional quality for students at Bowdoin to study, the sisters seeded the Museum collections with many important gifts, both from their own collections and newly acquired works for the occasion. 

The glass vessels the sisters acquired for the Museum fall into the latter category and were purchased from the Thomas B. Clarke Fine Arts gallery in New York City. They were reported to be from three sources: German excavations at Limassol in Cyprus in the 1880s, the excavations of Alessandro Palma di Cesnola, also on Cyprus, and from local (unexcavated) collections in and around the city of Tyre in Lebanon. As such, the Walker glass collection represents an excellent cross-section of ancient glass arts, particularly of Roman glass production in the eastern Mediterranean.

—Sean P. Burrus

Provenance

Before 1894, likely excavated in Greece, possibly Rhodes; 1894, sold to Mary Sophia Walker by a Mr. Morgan on behalf of the Thomas B. Clarke Fine Arts Gallery, New York; 1894, acquired by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, gift from Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker, Brunswick.

Collector
Mary Sophia Walker and Harriet Sarah Walker

Donors of the Walker Art Building as well as a significant collection of art and antiquities, Mary Sophia Walker (1839–1904) and Harriet Sarah Walker (1844–1898) were among the most significant benefactors in the development of the art collection at Bowdoin.

Region: Syria See all 6
Map of mediterranean sea with the approximate boundaries of the Levant highlighted.
Related: Glass 6