Cylindrical glass bottle

Signed by Frontinus

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 169

Translucent yellow green, with handles in same color; streaks in purplish red on lower body and bottom.
Rim folded out, down, round, and in; flaring mouth; uneven cylindrical neck, expanding downwards; broad, convex shoulder, pushed-in at center; cylindrical body with slightly convex vertical side; uneven, slightly concave bottom with small central pontil mark; two broad strap handles with ribs on either edge attached on opposite sides to edge of shoulder, drawn up, then turned in horizontally and trailed onto underside of rim. Two prominent vertical mold seams run down body from top to bottom, misaligned on one side, with a separate disk-shaped base section; on one side, there appear to be small indented circles near the top and bottom on either side of the misaligned seam, perhaps indicating fasteners or hinges.
On body, side divided into three horizontal bands of roughly equal width; top and bottom bands have six continuous horizontal ribs; central band is plain; on bottom, outer flat ring with four letters F R O N arranged as if the four cardinal points on a fine concentric circle, and a small concentric circle around center.
Intact; many pinprick and larger bubbles, and blowing striations; slight dulling and iridescence on exterior, patches of iridescent weathering on interior.

In addition to the so-called Mercury flasks (such as 81.10.58 displayed nearby), cylindrical bottles decorated with horizontal ribs were very popular glass containers in the northwestern provinces of the Empire during the second and third centuries A.D. These barrel-like bottles often have the name of the maker, Frontinus, inscribed on the base; on this example, it has been abbreviated to FRON. The workshops associated with Frontinus were probably located in northeastern France.