**Originally Listed At $4000**
Roman Empire, 1st to 2nd century CE. Among the most valuable and time intensive examples of glass in the entire ancient world! Assembled from sections of a pre-formed composite blue and white mosaic glass cane set into a deep green base; the interior of the bowl and the rim rotary polished afterwards, the exterior fire-polished thereby creating a smoother and more shiny surface. An item such as this would have been prohibitively expense for all but the wealthiest of the Roman elite. Size: 3.125" W (7.9 cm)
Pliny described the eye-like forms of mosaic glass in his Natural History, "Pieces of broken glass can, when heated to a moderate temperature, be stuck together, but that is all. They can never again be completely melted except into globules separate from each other, as happens in the making of the bits of glass sometimes called 'eyes,' and which in some cases have a variety of colors arranged in several different patterns." (Pliny, Natural History XXXVI.199)
For a ribbed bowl created in a stylistically similar fashion with blue and purple glass with white accents, please see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 17.194.265
For an example of an uncarinated mosaic glass bowl from the Eastern Roman Empire, please see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 17.194.1481
A strikingly similar example, of a larger form and with only white and blue glass, hammered for GBP 18,750 ($24,464.06) at Bonhams, London, New Bond Street "Antiquities" auction (April 3, 2014, lot 125).
Provenance: East Coast collection, New York Gallery, New York City, New York, USA, purchased in May 2023; ex-Arte Primitivo, New York, USA; ex-estate of Peter H. Tillou, acquired 1990s, thence by descent to family; ex-Chan International Gallery; ex-Mounsieur B. Toulouse collection, France, acquired in the 1970s
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#182335
Condition
Repaired from 3 pieces, tiny "flea-bites" to rim else remarkably intact. Surface weathered but quite opalescent.