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A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 1
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 2
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 3
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 4
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 5
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 6
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 7
A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug image 8
Lot 166*

A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug

Antiquities
7 December 2021, 12:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,912.50 inc. premium

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A Byzantine amber rectangular glass jug
Circa 6th-7th Century A.D.
With funnel mouth with infolded rim and green strap handle, the four sides mould blown respectively with the Edicule with hanging lamp; a tabula ansata; a large cross; and a tabula ansata, with a rosette on the underside of the base, 22cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Private collection, USA.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 17 December 1997, lot 28.
with Hadji Baba Ancient Art, London.
Private collection, USA, acquired from the above 21 April 1998.

This jug is a relic from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, part of the Shrine Series of vessels. The moulded decoration includes the Edicule, an ornate shrine in the church that encloses what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ.

The mould blowing technique continued to be used in the 7th Century in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and went on to influence Sasanian and early Islamic workshops. Many of these 7th Century flasks were mould blown with Christian and Judaic symbols, made for pilgrims visiting the holy places of Jerusalem. It is believed that pilgrims would purchase these bottles and fill them with earth that had been scantified overnight in the Tomb of Christ to place at a future date in their own graves. Other examples from this mould include a bluish-green handled bottle in the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, London (M. Newby, Byzantine Mould-Blown Glass from the Holy Land with Jewish and Christian Symbols, The Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, London 2008, pp. 42-3, no. 5) and an olive-green example in the Erwin Oppenländer Collection (A. von Saldern et al. 1974, Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer, Hamburg, p. 180, no. 500, fig. on p. 181).

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