Journal (Museum of Applied Art. Online)

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Milica Križanac

PRILOG PROUČAVANJU DUGOVRATIH CILINDRIČNIH BOCA SA STRIGILIRANIM UKRASOM
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE RESEARCH INTO THE LONG-NECK CYLINDRICAL BOTTLES WITH STRIGILLATED DECORATION

Journal 1/2005 (Museum of Applied Art), pages 83-85

UDC:
904:748(497.1)

Summary:
In The Museum of the Applied Art in Belgrade there is bottle of almost cylindrical shape, made of thin, colorless, transparent glass. The neck of the bottle is cylindrical and very long. The rim is of an irregular round shape made by the application of glass thread. The neck, shoulder and the most of recipients are decorated with spiral flutes, turned to the right. The bottom is extremely concave. The bottle is almost completely coated with a layer of milky white irridation. It was found in the very commercial center of Sremska Mitrovica.

There is an extreme similarity between our example and a small bottle from The Hans Cohn Collection, dated into the 16^th century. Its place of its provenience is most probably Murano. Although almost identical with the bottle from The Museum of the Applied Arts, it differs in size, the colour of glass, the direction of the flutes and somewhat in shape.

On the other hand, two whole long-neck cylindrical bottles with strigillated decoration and a dozen of fragments, which are in size, form and colour of glass almost identical with the bottle from The Museum of the Applied Art were unearthed in Lower Town of The Belgrade Fortress, during archaeological excavations in 1978. These were found in the remainder of a building with more recent ceramic findings and one metal, partly recognizable object (a chit or a button). On the basis of the excavated archaeological material, the building is dated into the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19^th centuries.

Sremska Mitrovica fell into Austrian arms after almost two centuries of Turkish rule, during the war of 1710-1718. As a trading center on Sava it attracted mostly the residents of the surrounding area. Modest trade existed between Sremska Mitrovica and other towns, as well as with Belgrade, Vienna and Budapest. At the beginning of the 19^th century there existed a glassmaking activity, and in the middle of the century three glassmakers worked in the town.

The production of glass in Venice was in decline at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th centuries, but the glassmaking based on its tradition continued to prosper in other European countries, such as Bohemia and Austria. Historic conditions in this time period as well as the great similarity with bottles produced in Styria point to Austria as a possible exporter of this type of bottles, to Mitrovica within its boundaries, and to Belgrade that largely bought glass from the neighbouring Empire.