A Roman pale blue glass lidded cinerary urn
Western Empire, circa mid-1st Century-2nd Century A.D.
The free-blown vessel, ovoid in form with a concave base, with folded rim forming a wide sloping lip, the lid disc-shaped with a pulled hollow stem, pinched four times at the top, 30cm high
Footnotes:
Provenance:
Giorgio Sangiorgi Collection, Rome, formed in the late 19th to early 20th Century.
Ancient Glass Formerly in the G. Sangiorgi Collection, Christie's, New York, 3 June 1999, lot 121.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 9 December 1999, lot 476.
American private collection, Westchester, New York, acquired from
the above.
Anonymous sale; Bonhams, London, 30 September 2015, lot 91.


Literature:
This form of glass jar with a broad flattened rim and ovoid body is known from many sites in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, and especially cemeteries, where with the addition of a separate lid, they were used as cinerary urns. The jar corresponds to Isings form 67a cf. C. Isings, Roman Glass from Dated Finds, Groningen, 1957, pp. 86-7, while the lid with pinched top is reminiscent of Isings form 66d, op.cit. p. 86.

For a further discussion cf. D. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, vol.1, Corning, 1997, p. 175, no. 307 and for examples in the Louvre found in both France and Italy, cf. V. Arveiller-Dulong and M-D. Nenna, Les Verres Antiques du Musèe du Louvre, vol. II, Paris, 2005, pp. 158-64, nos. 433-57.