With its exceptional workmanship and design, this cast bowl is the most important ancient glass vessel in Moore’s collection. Few vessels with large sections of colored glass survive from antiquity, and this is the only intact example that combines the technique with mosaic-inlay decoration. Four separate pieces of translucent glass—purple, yellow, blue, and colorless—of roughly equal size were pressed together in an open casting mold. Each segment was then embellished with mosaic glass representing a garland hanging from a white cord. Glass canes (rods) of four different color combinations arranged in pairs form the individual swags. Bowls decorated with garlands have been found in Italy, Cyprus, and Egypt.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Glass garland bowl
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:late 1st century BCE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Glass; cast and cut
Dimensions:H. 1 13/16 in. (4.6 cm), diameter 7 1/8 in. (18.1 cm)
Classification:Glass
Credit Line:Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891
Object Number:91.1.1402
Until 1891, collection of Edward C. Moore; acquired in 1891, bequest of Edward C. Moore.
Eisen, Gustavus A. and Fahim Joseph Kouchakji. 1927. Glass: Its Origin, History, Chronology, Technic and Classification to the Sixteenth Century, Vol. 1. pl. 30b, New York: W. E. Rudge.
Oliver, Andrew Jr. 1967. "Late Hellenistic Glass in the Metropolitan Museum." Journal of Glass Studies, 9: p. 17, figs. 6–7.
Stern, E. Marianne and Birgit Schlick-Nolte. 1994. Early Glass of the Ancient World, 1600 B.C. A.D. 50: Ernesto Wolf Collection. p. 268, Ostifildern, Germany: Verlag Gerd Hatje.
Arveiller-Dulong, Véronique, Marie-Dominique Nenna, and Musée du Louvre. 2000. Les Verres Antiques, Vol. 1. pp. 140, 141 n. 8, n. 8, Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais.
Lightfoot, Christopher S. and Elisabetta Valtz Fino. 2001. "In "Ars Vitraria: Glass in the Metropolitan Museum of Art": Greek and Roman Art." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 59(1): p. 21.
Pilosi, Lisa, Mark T. Wypyski, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Elisabetta Valtz Fino. 2001. "In "Ars Vitraria: Glass in the Metropolitan Museum of Art": Technical Examination and Conservation of Glass." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 59(1): p. 68.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 390, pp. 336, 483, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2009. "Glass and Gold of the Hellenistic and Early Roman World." Philippe de Montebello and the Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977-2008, James R. Houghton, ed. p. 18, fig. 24, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. p. 78, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Wight, Karol B., William Gudenrath, and Stephen P. Koob. 2015. "A New Nilotic Bowl at The Corning Museum of Glass." Journal of Glass Studies, 57: p. 73, fig. 30.
Lightfoot, Christopher S. 2016. "Fragments of Time: Ancient Glass in the Department of Greek and Roman Art." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 51: p. 32.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 79, pp. 177,179, 195, New York: Scala Publishers.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. pp. 026, 287, New York: Phaidon Press.
Lightfoot, Christopher S. and Kyriaki Karoglou. 2021. Collecting Inspiration : Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., Medill Higgins Harvey, ed. no. 72, pp. 122–24, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
