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135. Ribbed Bowl Fragment

Accession Number 76.AF.70.15
Dimensions L. 1.6, W. 2.6, Th. 0.3–0.5 cm; Wt. 2.65 g
Date Late first century BCE–early first century CE
Production Area Roman Empire, probably Italy
Material Translucent purple and opaque white 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 pressed and polished
View in Collection

Condition

Fragment.

Description

Fragment of lower body, which seems to be shallow and convex, preserving parts of three vertical, evenly spaced ribs. Composite mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of a composite cane of dark purple glass in which a fine, opaque white thread was spiraled. The sections were fused together into a single mass, which was slumped over a former mold, and the ribs were created by tooling while the former was on a rotating base, probably a potter’s wheel.

Comments and Comparanda

For the production technique, see comments on cat. 86. On the trade of small fragments of mosaic glass in nineteenth-century Rome and on the different techniques and classes of mosaic glass present in the Getty collection, see comments on cat. 95. On agate and marbled vessels, see comments on cat. 132. For mosaic glass ribbed bowls, see cats. 133134.

Provenance

By 1976, Bruce McNall, donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1976

Bibliography

Unpublished

Exhibitions

None