Glass sprinkler flask with snake-thread decroation

Translucent light blue green; base ring and trail in same color.

Outsplayed rim, folded down, round, and in; slanting, funnel-shaped mouth; short, cylindrical neck, with folded diaphragm at base; conical body with straight side, then curving in sharply; applied, solid base ring; low kick in bottom with small pontil scar at center.

A single continuous trail wound around body in a sinuous pattern, partially flattened and decorated with close-set tooled notches.

Intact; a few pinprick and elongated bubbles, and blowing striations; slight dulling and small patches of limy encrustation and iridescent weathering on exterior, larger patches of soil encrustation, weathering, and brilliant iridescence on exterior.

Although the snake-thread decoration seen here is found on Roman glassware throughout the Empire, the shape of this flask belongs firmly in the eastern tradition. It has a constriction at the base of the neck that allowed the contents to be poured out only in drops and so has become known as a sprinkler flask.

Credit: Fletcher Fund, 1959