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Catalogue

112. Fragment of a Mosaic Glass Vessel

Accession Number 83.AF.28.19
Dimensions pres. H. 3.9, est. Diam. rim 10.0, Th. 0.4 cm; Wt. 11.90 g
Date Late first century BCE–early first century CE
Production Area Italy or possibly Egypt
Material Translucent blue and green and opaque white, red, and yellowish green glass
Modeling Technique and Decoration Made from a polychrome disk-shaped blank assembled from fused-together lengths and sections of round mosaic canes; slumped; rotary polished
View in Collection

Condition

Rim and upper body fragment.

Description

Vertical, slightly flaring, ground rim; convex body wall of a hemispherical bowl. On the preserved fragment the following two types of tesserae appear: (1) checkerboard pattern of 16 (4 × 4) tesserae, alternately translucent blue and opaque white; (2) a rosette of seven identical tesserae (six surrounding a central one), opaque red set in yellowish green in translucent green glass.

Comments and Comparanda

For the production technique, see comments on cat. 86. On the trade of small fragments of mosaic glass in the nineteenth century and on the different techniques and classes of mosaic glass present in the Getty collection, see comments on cat. 95. For a glass mosaic bowl with similar patterns at the Museo Archeologico of Florence, see , p. 104, no. 27.

Provenance

1983, Jiří K. Frel, 1923–2006, donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1983

Bibliography

Unpublished

Exhibitions

None