541. Bead

Condition

Fully preserved, with minor scratches.

Description

A cylindrical bead made of 20 circular tesserae arranged in four rows and roughly five columns. These slices were fused together as a flat mass and subsequently folded around a rod and rolled. The seam of this folding is still visible along the edge of the hole in the bead. Each tessera comprises the following: a thick white rod surrounded by finer red and white layers, in turn surrounded by a translucent green layer in which are arranged at equal distances ten minuscule white rods.

Comments and Comparanda

On mosaic beads and in particular on beads with female faces and busts, see cat. 534. On mosaic beads with checkerboard motifs, see cat. 537. For a revival of the technique with mosaic beads bearing similar motives from late-9th to early-10th-century CE Serbia, see Radičević and Ćirković 2023.

Provenance

Pierre Mavrogordato, Greek, 1870–1948 (Berlin, Germany); by 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his son, Gert Oppenländer, 1988; 1988–2003, Gert Oppenländer (Waiblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003

Bibliography

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 84, no. 237.

Exhibitions

Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)