EXTREMELY RARE ANCIENT ROMAN GLASS LARGE-SIZED OCTAGONAL-FORM PRISMATIC BOTTLE, translucent blue-green glass, blown-molded octagonal form, short tapering neck with wide mouth having been folded out and then round and in and flattened, two thick and wide triple-ribbed handles attached at the shoulder, then pulled straight up and inwards and down at an acute angle towards the neck, with each handle's upper trail curled inwards on itself and tooled upwards around the rim; flat base embossed with a molded marking consisting of a circle inside a diamond-shaped lozenge. Late 1st century to 3rd century AD. 10 3/4" HOA, 7 3/4" base WOA.
Literature: H.E.M. Cool - Blue/Green Glass Bottles from Roman Britain: Square and Other Prismatic Forms, pg. 151-153 and ibid, p. 167; Ellis -"Discovery of Roman remains at Barrow-on-Soar" in Transactions Leicestershire Architectural and Archaeological Society Vol. 3, pg. 222-225, pl. II.
Catalogue Note: The recently-published literature on this type of bottle (known as a "prismatic" bottle for the various prism shapes they were blown in) is the culmination of a lifetime of work and research by Roman glass expert Dr. Hilary Cool. Her authoritative study uses a numbers-based and archaeology-minded analytical approach in its masterful handling of a hyper-specific and sometimes dense subject. The scope of this quantitative study underscores the rarity of the present lot: in the corpus of 523 bottles studied, there are 443 of the square type, 49 hexagonal, 25 rectangular, and only six octagonal. Each of these six examples is gigantic, having measurements that put them "in the upper reaches of the fourth quartile" with regards to base width (and overall size). These are very large bottles, and it is noted by Dr. Cool that in general, "large bottles" have a propensity to be "of first century or earlier second century date", a fact that she says raises "interesting questions about the very rare octagonal form". Due to the very small number of these bottles available for her study, these questions have not yet been explored, but implicit is a close relationship between the rectangular and the octagonal types. 
The octagonal type is virtually unknown in public or private collections of Roman glass, but one nearly-identical intact example is particularly well known to the world of Romano-British archaeology. That example was excavated at Barrow upon Soar (Leicestershire) in 1867 from a Roman tomb where it had been used as a crematory urn. It has been held locally ever since by the Leicestershire County Council Museums, where it is on view, still containing the occupant's charred bones and cremated remains. An illustration from the 1867 archaeological report is reproduced here, which shows the bottle as well as its base marking.
The base marking is the most visible difference between the Barrow upon Soar example and the present example. Its "diamond lozenge containing a circle" marking is not found on any of the six octagonal bottles studied by Dr. Cool. However, an exact match for it can be found on several rectangular bottles in the book, as seen on p. 147, fig. 9.1. Additionally, there are a number of close or exact matches known on rectangular bottles in public collections including: at the Met (object nos. "17.194.217" and "17.194.219"), at the Louvre ("ED 1571, N 5152"), at the Intercisa Museum (inventory no. "74.27.9"), and at the London Museum (object ID "A11892"). This litany of matches suggests that octagonal bottles did indeed develop "alongside the earlier rectangular ones", as Dr. Cool had theorized - and it seems likely that further research might find more matching markings, further strengthening this theory. Hopefully, in the years to come, more and more connections can be made between the different base markings found on prismatic bottles including between this octagonal example and other more common types. As Dr. Cool has demonstrated, this area is quite ripe for study, and close interrogation of these bottles can yield fascinating fruit, with wide-reaching implications for our collective knowledge of Roman glassmaking and trade networks.

Intact with the exception of a 1/4" D hole to the lower extremity of one base corner, with adjacent bruising. Heavy surface wear/scratching and light to moderate dull iridescence and weathering.

Purchased by a Virginia collector on eBay in late 2024.
Ex-property of an American private collector, who reportedly discovered it at a Paris antique mall in the 1980s.