![Medallion with a Portrait of Gennadios MET DP325825 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Medallion_with_a_Portrait_of_Gennadios_MET_DP325825_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Gold glass or gold sandwich glass is a luxury form of
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
where a decorative design in
gold leaf
Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...
is fused between two layers of glass. First found in
Hellenistic Greece
Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of the country following Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic. This culminated ...
, it is especially characteristic of the
Roman glass
Roman glass objects have been recovered across the Roman empire, Roman Empire in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced. Roman g ...
of the
Late Empire in the 3rd and 4th century AD, where the gold decorated roundels of cups and other vessels were often cut out of the piece they had originally decorated and cemented to the walls of the
catacombs of Rome
The Catacombs of Rome ( it, Catacombe di Roma) are ancient catacombs, underground burial places in and around Rome, of which there are at least forty, some rediscovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either i ...
as grave markers for the small recesses where bodies were buried. About 500 pieces of gold glass used in this way have been recovered. Complete vessels are far rarer. Many show religious imagery from Christianity, traditional Greco-Roman religion and its various cultic developments, and in a few examples Judaism.
Others show portraits of their owners, and the finest are "among the most vivid portraits to survive from Early Christian times. They stare out at us with an extraordinary stern and melancholy intensity". From the 1st century AD the technique was also used for the gold colour in
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s.
Various different techniques may sometimes also be described as "gold glass".
Zwischengoldglas is very similar but the two layers of glass are cemented, not fused. It mostly comes from Germany and
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Verre églomisé
''Verre églomisé'' is a French term referring to the process of applying both a design and gilding onto the rear face of glass to produce a mirror finish. The name is derived from the 18th-century French decorator and art-dealer Jean-Baptist ...
properly covers a single layer of glass which is
gilded
Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...
(or coated with other types of metal leaf) on the back, as used in 19th century shop signs and the like. One process was revived by Jean-Baptise Glomy (1711–1786), hence the name. Both of these processes were also used in ancient times, and the German and French languages often use their native terms for what is called "gold glass" in English.
Gold ruby glass or "cranberry glass" is actually red, coloured by the addition of
gold oxide. Gold-band glass is another ancient technique covered below.
Technique
The manufacturing process for gold glass was difficult and required great skill. For a Late Roman glass, first a small round flat disc, typically about three to five inches across, was cut away from a
blown sphere with a flattened bottom, either made of coloured or plain glass. A piece of gold leaf was then glued to this with
gum arabic
Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the '' Acacia'' tree, ''Senegalia sen ...
. The design was created by scraping away gold leaf. The main vessel, a cup or bowl, was formed by blowing and cutting, with a flat bottom the same size as the first disc. This was then heated again and carefully lowered onto the disc with the design, superimposing the flat bottom with the disc with the design so that they fused together. The complete vessel was then heated a final time to complete the fusing. Different accounts of different periods vary somewhat as to the precise sequence of stages and other details, but the process is essentially the same.
The larger
Hellenistic glass bowls are thought to have been formed using
moulding rather than blown, as the whole bowl is doubled and the inner and outer vessels must fit together exactly.
Some of the finer later medallions seem to have been made as such from the start, and some contain pigments other than the gold. These smoother-edged medallions exploited the medium of glass as a matrix for
portrait miniature
A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...
s, and it has proved to be a very effective one, outlasting all alternatives except for precious metal and
engraved gem
An engraved gem, frequently referred to as an intaglio, is a small and usually semi-precious gemstone that has been carved, in the Western tradition normally with images or inscriptions only on one face. The engraving of gemstones was a major lu ...
s. They were probably initially made to be hung for display, or set in jewellery in smaller examples like that of Gennadios, but were also used for funerary purposes, and often use a base of blue glass. They are a few Roman examples of vessels from Cologne of a different style where several of what have been called "sidewall blobs", small gold glass medallions about 2–3 cm across, with images, are fused into the walls of a vessel.
![Roman - Bowl - Walters 4784 - View A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Roman_-_Bowl_-_Walters_4784_-_View_A.jpg)
Apart from roundels with figurative images the fused sandwich technique was used to create the
tesserae
A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive ''tessella'') is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus.
Historical tesserae
The oldest known tesserae ...
for gold in
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
s, and for beads and the like. Gold glass tesserae, at least by Byzantine times, had a very thin top layer of glass, which was probably poured onto the lower glass with the gold leaf glued to it. Tesserae were made in blocks or "cakes" and then cut into cubes, which are relatively large in the case of gold backgrounds. Gold backgrounds were laid over earth red or
yellow ochre
Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
backgrounds which enhanced their visual effect. Most colours of tesserae seem to have been made locally to the mosaic, but there is some discussion as to whether this was true for gold glass ones. In the 11th century the relatively new Christian centre of
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
seems to have used gold tesserae made in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
.
Roman gold glass beads were made by using an inner tube or rod to which the gold leaf was stuck. A larger tube was slid over that and the beads crimped off. Easily transported and very attractive, Roman gold glass beads have been found as far outside the Empire as the
Wari-Bateshwar ruins
The Wari-Bateshwar (Bengali: উয়ারী-বটেশ্বর,''Uari-Bôṭeshshor'') ruins in Narsingdi, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh is one of the earliest urban archaeological sites in Bangladesh. Excavation in the site unearthed a ...
in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, and sites in China,
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
and
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.
Gold-band glass is a related Hellenistic and Roman technique, where strips of gold leaf, sandwiched between colourless glass, are used as part of the marbling effect in
onyx glass. It is mostly found in small perfume bottles and the like.
Grave-markers
![Dougga cup-bearers mosaïc](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Dougga_cup-bearers_mosa%C3%AFc.jpg)
The most common form of vessel in late Roman examples was a bowl or drinking cup, which are thought to have been originally family gifts for weddings, anniversaries, New Year, the various religious festivals and the like, in some cases perhaps presented at birth or Christian baptism. None of the type of gold glass vessels cut down as grave-markers has survived complete, though about 500 of the cut-off bottoms are known, but since so many have inscriptions encouraging the owner to drink, they are usually referred to as "cups" or "glasses". However Roman drinking cups and glasses were often very wide and shallow, though tall straight-sided or slightly flared shapes like modern
tumblers
Tumbler may refer to:
* Tumbler (glass), a type of glassware
* Tumbler (pigeon), a pigeon breed
* Tumbler (Project Xanadu), a unique identifier of a unit of text or an embedded link
* Tumbler (surname), an extinct surname of British origin
* ...
are also found. A mosaic in the North African ruins of
Dougga
Dougga or Thugga or TBGG was a Berber, Punic and Roman settlement near present-day Téboursouk in northern Tunisia. The current archaeological site covers . UNESCO qualified Dougga as a World Heritage Site in 1997, believing that it represents " ...
shows two hefty slaves pouring wine from ''
amphorae
An amphora (; grc, ἀμφορεύς, ''amphoreús''; English plural: amphorae or amphoras) is a type of container with a pointed bottom and characteristic shape and size which fit tightly (and therefore safely) against each other in storag ...
'' into two shallow bowls held by slaves waiting on the banquet. The two ''amphorae'' are inscribed with "ΠΙΕ" and "ΣΗϹΗϹ" the Greek originals of the toasting formulae "" ("Drink, may you live", discussed below) so common on Roman glasses, and it has been suggested that the mosaic shows the shape a complete cup would have had.
![Gold-glass portrait of husband and wife (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Museo Sacro, Inv](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Gold-glass_portrait_of_husband_and_wife_%28Biblioteca_Apostolica_Vaticana%2C_Museo_Sacro%2C_Inv._no._743%29.jpg)
At what was probably a much later date, perhaps after decades of use, on the death of the owner the main vessel of undecorated glass was cut away and trimmed to leave only the gold glass roundel, which was then used in the catacombs as a grave marker. Presumably in many cases the cup had already broken in the normal course of use, and the thick bottom with the decoration had been preserved for later use in this way. Bodies were buried in the catacombs in small recesses called ''loculi'', stacked one above another mostly along narrow corridors hollowed out from the soft rock, and no doubt some form of marker was necessary for visitors to locate the right spot. They may also have functioned as a seal on the grave, as they were pressed into the mortar or
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
forming the final surface of the wall of the ''loculus''; other classes of small decorative objects were also used in the same way. They may also have been regarded as capable of warding off evil spirits, especially in the later part of the period, when portraits of saints become most common.
The very untidy trimming of many examples may be explained by this; an example in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
is still attached to a chunk of mortar round much of its edge, showing that the mortar overlapped the edge of the glass. Rough edges would mostly have been hidden by the mortar and also provided a firmer key for the mortar to hold the glass in place (as it happens the edges of the New York piece are unusually neatly trimmed).
Many pieces of gold glass had portraits of private individuals, mostly married couples, who may have included the deceased, while others had portraits of religious figures such as saints, or religious symbols. This custom was followed by Christian, Jewish (13 identifiably Jewish examples are known) and pagan Romans. The different sets of imagery, apart from the increased number of private portraits, are typical of the paintings also found in the catacombs and other
Early Christian art
Early Christian art and architecture or Paleochristian art is the art produced by Christians or under Christian patronage from the earliest period of Christianity to, depending on the definition used, sometime between 260 and 525. In practice, id ...
and its Jewish equivalent from the period. As Christian art developed in the late 4th and 5th centuries, its changes are reflected in the subjects and their treatment in gold glass, before the catacombs ceased to be used and the supply of examples ends.
Hellenistic period
The technique was used in
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
times, and Hellenistic examples are generally both more technically ambitious than Roman ones, with wide bowls or drinking cups decorated all round their curved sides in gold glass, and executed with more artistry. The
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
has a virtually complete bowl (broken but repaired) 19.3 cm wide and 11.4 cm high, one of two from a tomb in
Canosa in
Apulia
it, Pugliese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographic ...
dating to around 270–160 BC. It has most of the interior very finely decorated with
lotus and
acanthus motifs, which are more typical of gold glass in this period than designs with human figures. There are a handful of other near complete examples, and rather more fragments.
These pieces are usually assigned to
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
in Egypt, which is often seen as the originating centre for luxury Hellenistic glass, and is mentioned as the source of over-elaborate glass by the 1st century
satirist
This is an incomplete list of writers, cartoonists and others known for involvement in satire – humorous social criticism. They are grouped by era and listed by year of birth. Included is a list of modern satires.
Under Contemporary, 1930-196 ...
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...
and other sources; one seems to show a
Nilotic
The Nilotic peoples are people indigenous to the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. Among these are the Burun-sp ...
landscape, though this was a popular subject elsewhere. However fragments have been found when excavating a glass factory on
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
. A description perhaps dating from the 270s BC (surviving in the works of the later writer
Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...
) mentions two vessels that are ''diachysa'' ("with gold in it") and very likely made by this technique.
Roman period
![Galla Placidia (rechts) und ihre Kinder](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Galla_Placidia_%28rechts%29_und_ihre_Kinder.jpg)
Gold glass mosaic tesserae begin to be used in domestic mosaics in the 1st century AD, with Rome apparently the first location. They continued to be used throughout the ancient and medieval periods into the modern day. By around 400 gold began to be used as the background colour for Christian religious mosaics, as it was throughout the Byzantine period.
The decorated late Roman pieces are usually assumed to have been made in and around Rome, especially in the case of portraits of residents there, but also in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
around
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
and
Augusta Treverorum
Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate, whose history dates to the Roman Empire, is often claimed to be the oldest city in Germany. Traditionally it was known in English by its French name of Treves.
Prehistory
The first traces of human settlement in ...
, modern
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
, which was a centre for other luxury glass products like
cage cup
A cage cup, also ''vas diatretum'', plural ''diatreta'', or "reticulated cup" is a type of luxury late Roman glass vessel, found from roughly the 4th century, and "the pinnacle of Roman achievements in glass-making". ''Diatreta'' consist of ...
s. Alexandria is still thought to have been a major centre, and from linguistic analysis of the inscriptions it has been suggested that the technique, and perhaps the actual artists and craftsmen, reached Rome and Germany from there. Yet it may just be a coincidence of survival that the other large body of "middle-class" portraiture from the period is the
Fayum mummy portraits
Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of ar ...
from Egypt. Apart from the Rhineland finds discussed below, small numbers of cut-off vessel bases have been found in northern Italy and modern
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
.
The Gennadios medallion in New York, illustrated above, is a fine example of an Alexandrian portrait on blue glass, using a rather more complex technique and naturalistic style than most Roman examples, including painting onto the gold to create shading, and with the Greek inscription showing local
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
features. He had perhaps been given or commissioned the piece to celebrate victory in a musical competition. One of the most famous Alexandrian-style portrait medallions, with an inscription in Egyptian Greek, was later mounted in an
Early Medieval
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
crux gemmata
A ''crux gemmata'' (Latin for jewelled cross) is a form of cross typical of Early Christian and Early Medieval art, where the cross, or at least its front side, is principally decorated with jewels. In an actual cross, rather than a painted imag ...
in
Brescia
Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo. ...
, in the mistaken belief that it showed the pious empress and
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
queen
Galla Placida (died 450) and her children; in fact the knot in the central figure's dress may mark a devotee of
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
. The portrait in the Brescia medallion also shares clear stylistic features with the
Fayum mummy portraits
Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits are a type of naturalistic painted portrait on wooden boards attached to upper class mummies from Roman Egypt. They belong to the tradition of panel painting, one of the most highly regarded forms of ar ...
of
Roman Egypt
, conventional_long_name = Roman Egypt
, common_name = Egypt
, subdivision = Province
, nation = the Roman Empire
, era = Late antiquity
, capital = Alexandria
, title_leader = Praefectus Augustalis
, image_map = Roman E ...
, in addition to a Greek inscription in the
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
n dialect of Egypt. This is one of a group of 14 pieces dating to the 3rd century AD, all individualized secular portraits of high quality. Yet Jás Elsner (2007) contends that the Brescia medallion, likely depicting a family from Alexandria since the inscription is in the
Alexandrian dialect of Greek, has a range of possible dates ranging from the early-3rd to mid-5th century AD, before it found its way to Italy where it adorned a 7th-century
Christian cross.
[Jás Elsner (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), ''Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World'', 11–18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. , p. 17, Figure 1.3 on p. 18.]
It is thought that the tiny detail of pieces such as these can only have been achieved using
lens
A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...
es. Where the refined "Alexandrian" medallions, wherever they were actually produced, mostly have a simple thin gold line framing the subject, the Roman examples have a variety of heavier frames, often using two round borders, the style of which forms part of efforts to group them by workshop. The level of portraiture is rudimentary, with features, hairstyles and clothes all following stereotypical styles.
![KHM Wien Zwischengoldglas Heilige XIa 37](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/KHM_Wien_Zwischengoldglas_Heilige_XIa_37.jpg)
An "Alexander plate with hunting scene" in the
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
is, if genuine, a very rare example of a complete vessel decorated with gold glass, and comes from the upper elite of Roman society. It is a shallow bowl or plate 25.7 cm (10 1/8 inches) in diameter and 4.5 cm (1 3/4 inches) high. The decorated flat roundel in the centre takes about two thirds of the whole diameter. It shows a mounted huntsman with a spear pursuing two
elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
, while beneath his horse a huntsman on foot with a hound on a leash confronts a
wild boar
The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...
. The Latin inscription "" means "Alexander fortunate man, drink, may you live, together with yours". The identity of "Alexander" has been the subject of discussion, but he is on the whole though to be an unknown aristocrat rather than
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
or the Emperor
Alexander Severus
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was ...
(reigned 232–235). The dish is perhaps slightly later than his reign and at least during his reign he could never be addressed as merely a "man". The Greek drinking toast ZHCAIC given in Latin letters as ZESES, meaning "live!" or "may you live", is a very common part of inscriptions on gold glass, and sometimes the only inscription. It is more common than the Latin equivalent VIVAS, probably because it was considered more refined, somewhat like the modern "bon appétit" used in English. Two glasses including images of Jesus "misspell" "ZESES" as "ZESUS", managing to achieve wordplay between a drinking toast and the name of the Christian saviour.
![Gladiator in gold glass](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Gladiator_in_gold_glass.jpg)
Such secular "blessings" are typical, and on roundels made from cups they often urge the owner to drink, even when the
iconography
Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
is religious. One Jewish example has the usual array of symbols and the inscription "Drink,
oyou may live, Elares". The
Wedding at Cana
The transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana (also called the marriage at Cana, wedding feast at Cana or marriage feast at Cana) is the first miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John.
In the Gospel account, Jesus Chris ...
is a popular Christian subject, with one example inscribed "Worthy of your friends, may you live in the peace of God, drink". Another popular phrase is DIGNITAS AMICORUM or "
ou are
OU or Ou or ou may stand for:
Universities United States
* Oakland University in Oakland County, Michigan
* Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama
* Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Georgia
* Ohio University in Athens, Ohio
* Olivet Univers ...
the honour of your friends". The majority of inscriptions are made up of either names or such conventional expressions, or the two combined. An example inscribed "DIGNITAS AMICORVM PIE ZESES VIVAS" typifies the tendency to pile together the common phrases. The convivial dedications found on so many examples are paralleled by several of the far more luxurious
cage cup
A cage cup, also ''vas diatretum'', plural ''diatreta'', or "reticulated cup" is a type of luxury late Roman glass vessel, found from roughly the 4th century, and "the pinnacle of Roman achievements in glass-making". ''Diatreta'' consist of ...
s or ''diatreta''.
One round bottom from a larger bowl found in the catacombs is 10.8 cm across, and now in the
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...
in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. It has five abbreviated scenes from the Old and New Testaments surrounding a married couple in a roundel, with the feet of the outer figures to the centre. A large and complex bowl from Cologne was decorated all over with Christian scenes and Imperial portraits, but presumably because of its size (height 8.6, diameter 11.4 cm) no second layer of glass was fused on, so the gold has now all been lost, though the shapes of the design can be seen. The portraits of the sons of
Constantine I
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christiani ...
allow an unusually precise probable dating to 326, his , or the 25th anniversary of his reign. Another complete piece is a
paten
A paten or diskos is a small plate, used during the Mass. It is generally used during the liturgy itself, while the reserved sacrament are stored in the tabernacle in a ciborium.
Western usage
In many Western liturgical denominations, the p ...
from the
Basilica of St. Severin, Cologne, founded in the 4th century. This is decorated with roundels containing
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
scenes and floral motifs. According to the ''
Liber Pontificalis
The ''Liber Pontificalis'' (Latin for 'pontifical book' or ''Book of the Popes'') is a book of biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the ''Liber Pontificalis'' stopped with Pope Adrian II (867 ...
'',
Pope Zephyrinus
Pope Zephyrinus was the bishop of Rome from 199 to his death on 20 December 217. He was born in Rome, and succeeded Victor I. Upon his death on 20 December 217, he was succeeded by his principal advisor, Callixtus I. He is known for combating h ...
, in office from 199 to 217, had approved the use of glass patens, and ones in other glass techniques survive. A variant technique is only known from vessels from Cologne with what have been called "sidewall blobs", where small gold glass medallions with images are fused into the walls of a vessel; one of the few examples was found in the cemetery of St Severin.
Iconography of the vessel bottoms
![Gold glass Christian plate, 4th century](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Gold_glass_Christian_plate%2C_4th_century.jpg)
Almost all the Roman vessel bottoms have imagery of some sort, and around 240 have legible inscriptions as well. Of these, about half of the total number of gold glasses known, portraits are most common, but there are small narrative scenes, mainly Christian but a few pagan. Portraits of Christian sacred figures are on about half the full corpus. There are a small number of depictions of sports, animals, wreaths and the like, and a single example with a central image of a plant. No Imperial portraits are recorded, nor military scenes; unlike so much Roman public art the glasses concentrate on the private interests of individuals. Apart from a single near-naked
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
and some figures of
erotes
In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Erotes () are a collective of winged gods associated with love and sexual intercourse. They are part of Aphrodite's retinue. ''Erotes'' (Greek ) is the plural of ''Eros'' ("Love, Desire"), who as a s ...
, sexual themes are another notable absence compared to much Roman art. Most glasses feature a single image occupying most of the round space within the border, but some have a number of small scenes, usually arranged in small circular frames around a central image. Most portraits are between bust and half-length. The small number of glasses with Jewish iconography are covered separately below.
Either portraits or inscriptions naming private individuals are very common, though other examples have no personalizing aspect and were perhaps just bought from a dealer's stock. Portraits of married couples are at first most common, but saints were more numerous towards the end of the period; the two are also often combined. It is not always possible to distinguish the two confidently, despite ''
tituli'' inscriptions and a convention of using contemporary dress for owners and a conventional out of date costume for sacred figures, even recent male ones such as
Pope Damasus I
Pope Damasus I (; c. 305 – 11 December 384) was the bishop of Rome from October 366 to his death. He presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of sacred scripture. He spoke out against major heresies ( ...
(r. 366–384). Damasus, exceptionally for a contemporary cleric, appears on at least four glasses, or at least it is thought he is who "DAMAS" refers to.
Saints Peter and Paul together are very common, usually facing each other in profile, but sometimes with other figures. Both were martyred in Rome, and especially popular there; other local martyrs such as
Agnes are depicted several times, and according to Lucy Grig "the ''Roman-ness'' of the saints portrayed on the Roman glasses is striking", and five popes from the 3rd and 4th centuries are probably depicted. Christ is shown in a number of examples, usually as clean-shaven and youthful, as well as figures such as the
Good Shepherd
The Good Shepherd ( el, ποιμὴν ὁ καλός, ''poimḗn ho kalós'') is an image used in the pericope of , in which Jesus Christ is depicted as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. Similar imagery is used in Psalm 23 ...
which may symbolize him, or in some cases
Orpheus
Orpheus (; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφεύς, classical pronunciation: ; french: Orphée) is a Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet in ancient Greek religion. He was also a renowned poet and, according to the legend, travelled with Jaso ...
or general
bucolic
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music ( pastorale) that depic ...
imagery. A small Christ may stand between the heads of a married couple, blessing them.
Orant
Orans (/ˈoː.rans/), a loanword from Medieval Latin ''ōrāns'' translated as ''one who is praying or pleading'', also orant or orante, as well as lifting up holy hands, is a posture or bodily attitude of prayer, usually standing, with the elbow ...
s perhaps representing the soul of an owner when not identified as a saint, and as in the catacombs always shown as female, appear a number of times, and female saints and the Virgin are always shown in the orant pose.
![Gold glass Resurrection of Lazarus, 4th century](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Gold_glass_Resurrection_of_Lazarus%2C_4th_century.jpg)
Narrative scenes from the Old Testament are more common than miracles of Christ, as in the catacomb paintings, and the same "abbreviated representations" of scenes of deliverance feature: the story of
Jonah
Jonah or Jonas, ''Yōnā'', "dove"; gr, Ἰωνᾶς ''Iōnâs''; ar, يونس ' or '; Latin: ''Ionas'' son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, from Gath-hepher of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th cent ...
,
Daniel in the lions' den
Daniel in the lions' den (chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel) tells of how the biblical Daniel is saved from lions by the God of Israel "because I was found blameless before him" (Daniel 6:22). It parallels and complements chapter 3, the story of S ...
, the three youths in the
Fiery Furnace. The most common scenes in later Christian art, centred around the liturgical calendar, are very rare. There are really only two non-Christian narrative scenes: one labour of Hercules (two more are shown in "sidewall blobs"), and one of
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's ''Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, k ...
, but a number of "portrait" figures, as with Christian sacred figures often combined with owners.
There are a small number of "agonistic" or sporting scenes, with wrestlers, boxers, one gladiator, and several racing chariot teams. Several of these, like others seeming to represent victory in a musical or dramatic context, feature palms and crowns and may well have been presented to celebrate victory in these fields in some amateur or professional setting, like the Alexandrian Gennadios portrait. Two identical glasses featuring two boxers with a trainer, all named, suggest that the glasses may sometimes have been ordered in sets; one may speculate that this may have been common. Single examples show
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
presiding over shipbuilders, a pair of personifications of Rome and Constantinople, and female figures representing the ''
monetae'' or mints, which are often shown on coins. A number have animals that may carry symbolic meaning, or objects such as scrolls or wreaths.
The short inscriptions tend to be similar regardless of the content of the image, with names and the "convivial formulae" described above together or separately predominating. A religious implication (as may be intended in ''vivas'' or for example) is relatively rarely explicitly stated. The names are in the single ''
cognomen
A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became here ...
'' form which is hard to relate to such records as survive, but three glasses can possibly be related to known individuals who were potential owners, and one to a family (that of the poet
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him. H ...
). These persons are rather grand, and one might think belonged to the classes buried in
sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...
rather than ''loculi''; the glasses perhaps belonged to ''"amici"'', clients or dependents, or had passed as gifts or legacies by the subjects. One glass in the British Museum is unusual in a number of respects: between a named couple is a smaller figure of Hercules, and the inscription: "ORFITVS ET CONSTANTIA IN NOMINE HERCVLlS ACERENTINO FELICES BIBATIS" or "Orfitus and Constantia, may you live/drink in happiness in the name of Hercules of Acerentia". This may well represent Memmius Vitruvius Orfitus, prefect of Rome, and his wife.
Acerentia in southern Italy had a local cult of Hercules. For some historians Orfitus was "notorious as the propaganda mastermind of the 'pagan revival'" of his day.
Jewish glasses
![2nd century Rome gold goblet shows Jewish ritual objects](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/2nd_century_Rome_gold_goblet_shows_Jewish_ritual_objects.jpg)
Only 13 of the more than 500 known Late Roman vessel bottoms are identifiably Jewish, but these have still been said to represent "the most appealing group of Jewish realia that have come down from antiquity". They are all presumed to have been used in the Roman catacombs as grave-markers, though as with the examples identifiable with other religions, the exact
find spot
Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...
and context of the great majority is unrecorded. Rather surprisingly, the only two of the 13 with full histories were found in Christian catacombs, whereas the only gold glass remains found in Jewish catacombs have no Jewish iconography, and show that "some Jews felt no qualm in using gold glasses with pagan iconographical motifs".
Identifiably Jewish roundels do not feature portraits but with one exception have a fairly standard array of religious symbols. The most common arrangement is on two levels, with two
Lions of Judah flanking a
Torah ark
A Torah ark (also known as the ''Heikhal'', or the ''Aron Kodesh'') refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
History
The ark, also known as the ''ark of law'', or in Hebrew the ''Aron Kodesh'' or ''aron ha- ...
above, and below two
menarot, a
shofar
A shofar ( ; from he, שׁוֹפָר, ) is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the ...
(rams horn),
etrog
Etrog ( he, אֶתְרוֹג, plural: '; Ashkenazi Hebrew: ', plural: ') is the yellow citron or ''Citrus medica'' used by Jews during the week-long holiday of Sukkot as one of the four species. Together with the ''lulav'', ''hadass'', and '' a ...
,
lulav
''Lulav'' (; he, לולב) is a closed frond of the date palm tree. It is one of the Four Species used during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The other Species are the ''hadass'' (Myrtus, myrtle), '' aravah'' (willow), and ''etrog'' (citron). Wh ...
and perhaps others of the
four Species, scrolls and vases. Not all the tiny symbols can be confidently identified. Alternatively, the objects are all in the top tier, above a banqueting scene. The single exception to such compositions has what is thought to be a representation of the
Temple of Jerusalem
The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusa ...
, perhaps representing the feat of
Purim
Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jews, Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Boo ...
.
Most scholars are confident that Jewish customers used the same workshops as those of the other religions, who presumably kept patterns for designs for all religions, or were provided with sketches. Some of the attempts to group glasses by workshop attribute Jewish glasses and those of other religions to the same workshop. Apart from the use of symbols rather than human figures, the Jewish glasses seem to have been used in very much the same way as those from other religious groups, which is also characteristic of other classes of Jewish artefacts from Rome at this time, where the Jewish community adopted many aspects of the general Roman way of life. Of the 13 known, five have inscriptions including the phrase "" (see above) and two "''anima dulcis''" (literally "sweet soul", equating to "sweetheart"), both very common phrases in Christian and pagan inscriptions. The rarer phrase "''vivas cum ...''" ("live with ...") is also found on Jewish and non-Jewish glasses. They would seem to have been given as gifts on the same sort of occasions, and there is evidence that Roman Jews shared the general Roman custom of New Year present-giving.
Later uses and collections
![Gold-glass portrait of two young men (Bologna)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Gold-glass_portrait_of_two_young_men_%28Bologna%29.jpg)
The technique continued to be used for mosaic tesserae, and at times for pieces that remained relatively large, for example in a small tile in New York with a pattern forming a cross, perhaps from a
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n church of the 9th to 12th centuries. A small group of Islamic vessels are decorated with mostly simplified vegetal motifs and probably date to the 10th century from
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
; the most complete ones are decorated over a large curved area and must have been made by using a "double vessel" method. In both respects these are closer to the Hellenistic vessels than most Roman ones.
From at least the 17th century, the Roman glasses attracted
antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
interest and they began to be removed from the catacombs, in a largely disorganized and unrecorded fashion; now only a "handful" remain in their original position in the catacomb walls. The first significant publication on them was by
Filippo Buonarroti
:''See also Philippe Buonarroti (1761–1837), expatriate radical journalist.''
Filippo Buonarroti (Florence, 18 November 1661 — 10 December 1733), the great-grandnephew of Michelangelo Buonarroti, was a Italian official at the court of Cosimo ...
in 1716, ''Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro ornate di figure trovati nei cimiteri di Roma'' ("Observations on some fragments of antique glass vases decorated with figures, found in the cemeteries of Rome"), in which he made the extraordinary, almost
proto-Romantic assertion that the aesthetic crudity of early Christian art, often remarked by connoisseurs of Roman arts, had served to intensify the piety of the worshipper, an early expression of feeling for
primitive art
Tribal art is the visual arts and material culture of indigenous peoples. Also known as non-Western art or ethnographic art, or, controversially, primitive art, Dutton, Denis, Tribal Art'. In Michael Kelly (editor), ''Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. ...
. After other studies, the Italian
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
Raffaele Garrucci published the first illustrated survey in 1858, with an expanded second edition in 1864. In the 19th century a number of imitations, copies and downright forgeries of Roman pieces were made, mostly in
Murano
Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was on ...
off
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, by firms such as
Salviati. The first major public exhibition of these seems to have been at the
Exposition Universelle of 1878 in Paris, by Italian firms.
A number of museums around the world have examples of Roman vessel bottoms. The largest collection is in the
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
, with the 60 pieces of Late Antique glass in the British Museum the second largest. A research project on their collection was due to finish in 2010 (see further reading below). The Wilshere Collection in the Ashmolean is the third largest, with some 34 pieces. The
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...
has 18 examples and the Metropolitan Museum in New York nearly as many. The most recent of many catalogues since the 18th century are by C.R. Morey in 1959, with 460 Roman vessel bases, against 426 in S. Smith's thesis of 2000. The corpus continues to be expanded by occasional new finds.
[Lutraan, 7–10]
Notes
References
*Beckwith, John, ''Early Christian and Byzantine Art'', Penguin History of Art (now Yale), 2nd edn. 1979,
*
Boardman, John ed., ''The Oxford History of Classical Art'', 1993, OUP,
*Conventi, A et al., "SEM-EDS analysis of ancient gold leaf glass mosaic tesserae. A contribution to the dating of the materials", OP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering Volume 32 conference 1, 2012, A Conventi, E Neri, and M Verità. IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 32 012007 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/32/1/012007
paper online*Cormack, Robin, in ''The Oxford handbook of Byzantine studies'', 2008, Editors Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, John F. Haldon, Robin Cormack; Oxford University Press, , 9780199252466
google books
*Corning video
"Gold Glass" video (5:24) from the
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...
*
Elsner, Jaś, "Archaeologies and Agendas: Reflections on Late Ancient Jewish Art and Early Christian Art", ''The Journal of Roman Studies'', Vol. 93, (2003), pp. 114–128
JSTOR* Elsner, Jás (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), ''Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World'', 11–18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. .
*Francis, Peter, ''Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present'', 2002, University of Hawaii Press, , 9780824823320
google books*Grig, Lucy, "Portraits, Pontiffs and the Christianization of Fourth-Century Rome", ''Papers of the British School at Rome'', Vol. 72, (2004), pp. 203–230
JSTOR*"Grove": "Mosaic" in ''The Grove encyclopedia of decorative arts: Volume 2, Labhardt to Zwischengoldglas'', Editor Gordon Campbell, 2006, Oxford University Press, , 9780195189483
google books*Henig, Martin (ed), ''A Handbook of Roman Art'', Phaidon, 1983,
* Howells, Daniel Thomas (2015).
A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (PDF). London: the British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council). Accessed 2 October 2016.)
*
Hugh Honour
Hugh Honour FRSL (26 September 1927 – 19 May 2016) was a British art historian, known for his writing partnership with John Fleming (art historian), John Fleming. Their ''A World History of Art'' (a.k.a. ''The Visual Arts: A History''), is now ...
and John Fleming, ''A World History of Art'', 7th edn. 2005, Laurence King Publishing, , 9781856694513
google books
*Lutraan, Katherine L.
''Late Roman Gold-Glass: Images and Inscriptions'', MA thesis, McMaster University, 2006, available online -"investigates the images and inscriptions that decorate the extant corpus of gold-glass vessel bases".
*Milburn, Robert, ''Early Christian art and architecture'', 1988, University of California Press, , 9780520074125
google books*Newby, Martine S., ''Glass of 4 Millennia'', Ashmolean handbooks, 2000,
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...
, , 9781854441232
google books*Rotroff, Susan I., "Silver, Glass, and Clay Evidence for the Dating of Hellenistic Luxury Tableware", ''Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens'', Vol. 51, No. 3 (Jul. – Sep., 1982), pp. 329–337
JSTOR*Rudoes, Judy, ""Reproductions of the Christian Glass of the Catacombs": James Jackson Jarves and the Revival of the Art of Glass in Venice", ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'', Vol. 37, (2002), pp. 305–314, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
JSTOR*Rutgers, L.V., ''The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora'', 2000, BRILL, , 9789004119284
google books*Sines, George, and Sakellarakis, Yannis A., "Lenses in Antiquity", ''American Journal of Archaeology'', Vol. 91, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 191–196, Archaeological Institute of America
JSTOR*Vickers, Michael, "The Wilshere Collection of Early Christian and Jewish Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford," ''Miscellanea a Emilio Marin Sexagenario Dicata'', Kacic, 41–43 (2009–2011), pp. 605–614
PDF
*
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed.,
Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century', nos. 79, 233, 261, 264–5, 347–8, 377, 382, 388, 396, 503, 507–8, 510–11, 1979,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York, ; full text available online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
*Wenzel, Marian, "Islamic Gold Sandwich Glass: Some Fragments in the David Collection, Copenhagen", ''The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'', No. 1 (1988), pp. 45–72
JSTOR*Williams, Dyfri. ''Masterpieces of Classical Art'', 2009, British Museum Press,
Further reading
*Howells, Daniel Thomas (2015)
''A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum'' (PDF) British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council), fully available online.
*Morey, Charles R., Ferrari, Guy, ''The Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library with Additional Catalogues of Other Gold-Glass Collections'', 1959, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
* British Museum Research Publication No. 179, Chapters: 13. "Making Late Antique Gold Glass", Daniel Thomas Howells; 14. "Gold Glass in Late Antiquity", Andrew Meek, in ''New Light on Old Glass: Recent Research on Byzantine Mosaics and Glass, 2013'', British Museum Press,
Full PDF online
External links
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Glass art
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Early Christian art
Jewish art
Ancient Roman glassware
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