Unguentarium (bottle for toiletry essences)

This blown-glass unguentarium originally contained perfume or other toiletry essences. Glass is a material particularly suitable for containers for liquid substances. The iridescent surface of this glass is striking. Unlike Tiffany’s products in the 19th century, the iridescence of antique glass is not intentional, but the result of surface corrosion.

The intact condition of this vial indicates its origin from a grave; only in this protected situation could it have remained intact. Unguentaria are among the most frequent grave goods found in women’s graves of the Roman epoch. Fragrant substances were meant to accompany the dead even in the hereafter.

Like the other objects in the display case on the right, this piece also comes from the illegally excavated collection of Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904), who was first a professional military officer, then a diplomat and amateur archaeologist, and from 1879 the first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These glasses were purchased at an auction in Paris in 1873 by Friedrich Imhoof-Blumer, the great Swiss numismatist, and were later bequeathed to the Münzkabinett Winterthur.

As with most of the antique objects in the extensive collection of Cesnola, which mainly went to the Metropolitan Museum, we know neither the exact excavation site of the pieces nor the context in which they were found. By tearing apart the finds from a site, important information for dating the graves, the gender of the deceased, but also about their social position, their habits, their access to imported goods and their ideas about the afterlife are lost to scholarship.