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Very Large Ancient Roman Glass Flask: (182 x 112 mm – 7 1/8 x 4 3/8 inches) c. 100 AD. An exceptionally well formed and remarkably large blue-green blown-glass Roman flask. It has a globular body with a slender neck and a flared lip with a folded rim.  Beautiful color and very fine satiny surface patina with some interior earthen deposits with areas of silvery iridescence. Superb condition - Rare and Beautiful !

Provenance: Daniel Freidenberg collection, ex Joel Malter c. 1971, found in Palestine. (Friedenberg was a curator of the Jewish Museum of NYC from 1944-1979).

The Malter catalog entry dated this flask at 350 AD, but recent scholarship places this type as earlier. See Ernest Wolf Collection, nr 37 and 38 for examples with identical shape and rim design dated at 2^nd half of 1^st cent AD and 2^nd half of 1^st century to early 2^nd century, respectively.

The survival of this fragile glass seems nearly miraculous. Occasionally examples where the glass has reacted to burial exhibit a shimmering iridescence that has long captivated the imagination of the most ardent collectors and artists.