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LOT 0118
Greek Core-Formed Tall Glass Alabastron
6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.
3 5/8 in. (36.69 grams, 91 mm).
With a fusiform body, slender neck and broad flange rim, decorated with marvered feathering and spiralling trails; two lateral loop handles and a pinched lateral lug.
ProvenanceAnonymous sale, Binoche & Giquello, Paris, 30th May 2012, no.124.
Private collection, Switzerland.
Accompanied by a copy of French passport no.0150269.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13188-249220.
Cf. The Corning Museum of Glass, accession number 50.1.5, for similar, in Goldstein, S.M., Pre-Roman and Early Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning-New York, 1979, pp.124-125, no.257; cf. The Metropolitan Museum, accession number 30.115.33, for another similar alabastron.
FootnotesAlabastra of this typology, core-formed, trail-decorated and tooled, are typical of the Eastern Mediterranean. They were diminutive examples of a shape popularly produced for perfumed oils in the Greek world. Larger forms are known in both glass and ceramics.
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LOT 0118
Greek Core-Formed Tall Glass Alabastron
Estimate £4,000 - 6,000€4,640 - 6,960 (for guidance only)$5,400 - 8,100 (for guidance only)
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Greek Iridescent Pale Aqua Glass Bowl
Hellenistic, mid 2nd-early 1st century B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £2,080
Conical in profile with a rounded apex, aqua glass with three incised bands below the rim on the inner face. 380 grams, 16 cm wide
Dr Jutaro Kawabe, Nagoya, Japan, his collection formed in the 1960s-1970s. with Hoshigaoka Gallery until the late 1990s. Private collection, London, UK. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12949-245243.
On ancient glass, iridescence is the soft play of colour that develops as the surface ages and becomes silica-rich. Minute layers form over time and break light into shifting blues, greens and golds. It is not a modern finish but something time has drawn out of the material itself, so the pattern and palette are unique to each piece. Collectors prize good, stable iridescence because it lifts the form: ribs read more crisply, profiles glow, and simple vessels take on depth and movement. Museums now tend to preserve these surfaces rather than polish them away, recognising both their beauty and what they tell us about an object’s long life (though it is not, by itself, a dating test). For display, iridescent glass performs brilliantly under gentle, directional light, where the colours “turn” as the vessel is moved. Well-preserved, even iridescence of this quality is not common and adds materially to the presence—and desirability—of the piece. -
Greek Bronze Animal Statuette
4th-1st century B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £130
Modelled in the round, standing on splayed legs, with a small tail and long body, curving ears. 60 grams, 53.5 mm
From the private collection of a European gentleman (1942-2024), formed since the 1970s. -
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Greek Solid Gold Ring Idol
5th-4th millennium B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £2,730
Annular in form with pierced tab. 0.66 grams, 18 mm
Private collection, acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s; thence by descent.
During the Greek Neolithic, certain types of ornaments share common morphological characteristics; one such example is the so-called ‘ring-idols’. The prototype of these ring-shaped pendants seems to have been made out of gold, which began to be used during these late phases of the Neolithic in Greece and the Balkans, in general.
