Pitcher c. 1 - 500

This is a glass pitcher, likely Roman, though made by an anonymous artist. While we can admire it for its simple beauty, it’s important to remember that the vast majority of people throughout history could never have afforded an object made from glass. Glassblowing was invented around the first century BCE in the Syro-Palestinian region, making glass vessels faster and cheaper to produce than they had been before. Despite this, glass remained a luxury, and it was used as an indicator of status and wealth. The pitcher’s presence here in the museum raises important questions about the social role of art. Why do we preserve some objects and not others? What does it mean to display an object that, when it was made, would have been available only to a select few? What kinds of research are necessary to understand the pitcher better? By exploring the economic history of the Roman Empire, we can begin to understand the pitcher as more than just a pretty object.