The jug, which is intact and in a remarkable state of preservation, has a pear-shaped body made of transparent purple glass with a curving handle of contrasting grayish green glass.

This well-preserved Roman pitcher draws the inspiration for its elegant form from the Greek oinochoe, or wine-pourer, a shape made of terracotta, bronze, or rarely, silver, which was popular from the 8th century B.C. onward. Like its predecessors, this delicate glass example was likely used for the serving of wine. The beautifully curved trefoil mouth made it possible to pour from the front of the vessel’s mouth or from either one of its curved sides. Its rich aubergine color, which suggests the purple coloring of the wine it contained, was culturally significant for the Romans for whom the use of purple, particularly in the form of garments was always a mark of prestige and rank. Besides their intrinsic beauty, glass vessels were highly valued in antiquity for use as tableware since glass is chemically neutral and does not impart any of its own taste or odor.

Although glass vessels were produced for centuries, it was the invention of glass blowing in the 1st century A.D., likely in Phoenicia and Syria, which made it possible to produce such luxury goods of fine quality in greater numbers. Previous methods of glass production, such as core-forming and casting were more cumbersome and time consuming compared to the newly discovered technique of glass blowing. Archaeological evidence indicates that blown glass came into prominence in the last years of the reign of Augustus. Literary evidence regarding the invention of glass blowing is far from explicit. Writing in the 1st century A.D., Pliny the Elder discussed the manufacture of glass and its discovery as told by the Phoenicians, which may be an oblique reference to the discovery of glass blowing.
During the time of Augustus, Strabo indicates that there was great interest in experimentation to simplify manufacturing processes, and glass blowing may have been one of these innovations.

All e-Tiquities have been searched in the Art Loss Register database.