LARGE COLORLESS ROEMER FROM THE EARLY 18TH C.

45E COLORLESS ROEMER OF THE ALLAIRE COLLECTION

Size: 16 cm Date: 1700-1720

Description:  This is a large clear colorless Roemer.  It has a high slightly concave foot with folded rim and a wide hemispherical bowl. The stem is decorated with six raspberry prunts and a kick where it attaches to the foot.

Remarks:  It beautiful tall Roemer has real presence and is in great condition.  The majority of this type were probably made in Northern Germany and used to drink beer. Many are engraved and the decoration lends support to the hypothesis that they originated in that region. (ref: Theuerkaauff-Liederwald 1969 P. 55-56)

Ref: Glass in the Rijksmuseum Volume 1 P. 150 # 217

“TIFFANY GLASS: PAINTING WITH COLOR AND LIGHT:” AT LAFAYETTE COLLEGE

Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light, from the Neustadt Collection, an exhibition illustrating Louis Comfort Tiffany’s masterful use of opalescent glass to achieve painterly results, ran from March 4 through June 4, 2016 in the Williams Center Gallery at Lafayette College, 317 Hamilton St., Easton.  The exhibition had 100 examples of Tiffany glass from the Neustadt Collection in New York City, featuring five windows, 15 leaded and stained glass lamps. This was a wonderful show and beautifully presented.

PRISMANTIC ROMAN GLASS BOTTLES

Most of these prismatic bottles were used for storage and shipping.  Mold blowing allowed these glass bottles to be fashioned in square and rectangular shapes for the purpose of saving space in storage and for transporting of liquids. The shape of these bottles were especially suitable to line up together on a shelf.  The square shaped forms made of thick glass were particularly applicable for goods such as olive oil, fish sauce and vinegar of wine.  For shipping these bottles were wrapped in wicker for protection and placed in wooded boxes in preparation for transit.

–

The following examples are from the private collectors contribute to this blog.

–

ROMAN GLASS PRISMATIC BOTTLE(active link)

From The Windmill Collection of Roman Glass

 

–

SMALL PRISMATIC ROMAN GLASS BOTTLES WITHOUT HANDLE(active link)

From The Windmill Collection of Roman Glass

 

–

OCTAGONAL BOTTLE WITH GREEK INSCRIPTION(active link) of Nico F. Bijnsdorp

 

 

–

Additional examples from various sources

 

 

WHAT IS THE IRIDESCENCE ON ANCIENT AND MODERN GLASS ?

–

What is iridescence on ancient glass?

 The iridescence on ancient glass was unintentional unlike what is found on modern Tiffany, Steuben glass from USA. Caused by weathering on the surface, the iridescence, and the interplay of lustrous, changing colors, is due to the refraction of light by thin layers of weathered glass. How much a glass object weathers depends mainly on burial conditions and to a lesser extent the chemistry of it. These conditions are humidity, heat and type of soil the glass was buried in. The chemistry of ancient glass, though basically the same as our soda glass, differed in the purity of raw materials and compositional ratio.  There were also differences in flux alkali used such as natron (sodium carbonate) or potash (potassium carbonate). Generally, glass made in the Western Provinces with potash has less iridescence than glass from the Eastern Mediterranean areas using natron. At the same time burial conditions also were different. Natural iridescence is sometimes found on modern glass bottles from digs in the back yards of old houses or pulled out of river beds. The word iridescence comes from Iris, the Greek Goddess of rainbows and refers to rainbow-like colors seen on the glass which changes in different lighting.  It is simply caused by alkali (soluble salt) being leached from the glass by slightly acidic water and then forming fine layers that eventually separate slightly or flake off causing a prism effect on light bouncing off and passing through the surface which reflects light differently, resulting in an iridescent appearance. Another type of iridescence can form on the inside of a vessel called patina (see 23R below).

Examples below illustrate ancient glass from the Allaire Collection with natural iridescence.

24R Roman double balsamarium 4-5th C

12R Piriform unguentarium 1st Century

19R Blown ribbed bowl 1st Century H: 6 cm, D: 8 cm

9R Roman mold-blown perfume bottle 3-4th Century

46R Roman tall-neck bottle 2-3rd Century 19.7 cm

32R Roman candlestick balsamarium 2-3rd Century 18.5 cm

23R Roman Zig Zag Pitcher 4th Century

4R Roman cylindrical bottle 3rd Century 9.8 cm

–

What is iridescence on modern glass

Modern iridescence sometimes called iris glass is made by adding metallic compounds to the glass or by spraying the surface with tin chloride also called stannous chloride (SnCl₂) or lead chloride (PbCl₂) and reheating in an annealing oven in a reducing atmosphere. A reducing atmosphere (redox) is produced in a fuel (oil) fired annealing oven by partly closing the draft and depriving the kiln of oxygen or adding carbon monoxide, nitrogen to replace the oxygen in the kiln. This reducing atmosphere on the glass surface in the presence of metallic compounds produce a rainbow effect called iridescence. The rainbow like effect that changes according to the angle from which it is viewed or the angle of incidence of the source of light. On ancient glass, natural iridescence is caused by interference effects of light reflected from several layers of weathering.

 

Examples below of Steuben, Tiffany, Loetz illustrate the iridescence on modern glass.

Steuben

Steuben

A Tiffany Favrile, Jack-in-the-Pulpit vase, and four iridescent vases attributed to Loetz c. 1900

Tiffany Favrille glass from USA

Decanter by Tiffany 1910

Loetz 1895-1905

 

 

ANCIENT GLASS AT MUSEE DE PICARDIE (AMIENS)

The Musée de Picardie is the main museum of Amiens and Picardy, at 48 rue de la République. Its collections stretch from prehistory to the 19th century and form one of the largest regional museums in France.  Its building was purpose-built for a regional museum (one of France’s first such buildings) between 1855 and 1867.  The Museum has been recently renovated.   The ancient glass pictured below is from an earlier trip and installations may have been changed.

–

Verreries Antiques du Musee de Picardie, Georges Dilly Noel Maheo, 1997 is a book in French about this wonderful glass collection.

Verreries Antiques du Musee de Picardie, Georges Dilly Noel Maheo, 1997

–

The selected pictures are from their collections of Gallo-Roman, Egyptian and Merovingian glass. Click on pictures to enlarge them and use ESC to return to this page.

87

86

85

84

83

82

81

80

79

78

77

76

75

74

73

72

71

70

69

68

67

66

65

64

63

62

61

60

59

58

57

56

55

54

53

52

51

50

49

48

47

46

45

44

43

42

41

40

39

38

37

36

35

34

33

32

31

30

29

28

27

26

25

24

23

22

21

20

19

18

17

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

 

 

 

WHAT IS GADROONING ?

 

 

Gadrooning is a decorative motif in glassmaking of continuous short repetitive vertical sections of either reeding or ribs.  Some of these have tiny protruding spikes of glass brought out and away from the vessel at the end of the row of gadroons.  Most often this decoration is applied after the vessel has been formed.

 

The following pictures show examples from the Allaire Collection and others to illustrate various styles of gadroon decoration.

3E 19th c. GOBLET

42E ENGLISH JELLY GLASS c. 1680

32E VENETIAN WINE GOBLET First half of 17th c.

53E BOHEMIAN ENGRAVED GOBLET 1700-1720

3E WINE GLASS , ENGLAND OR NETHERLANDS c. 1650

17E SMALL ENGLISH TANKARD c. 1770

122E Facon de Venise Tuscan Wine Glass

 

 

 

ANCIENT AND ISLAMIC GLASS: SELECTIONS FROM THE CORNING MUSEUM OF GLASS

Authored By Katherine A. Larson

This book replaces a small, out-of-print volume containing a selection of ancient Roman glass from the Museum’s collection.  It improves on that book by adding Islamic glass and new acquisitions while expanding greatly the chronological scope.  The book is like a handbook to Corning’s archaeological glass collections of ancient glass. Dr. Larson has chosen to include not only aesthetic masterpieces but also more functional objects in order to order to approach the topic of ancient glass from a broader perspective. This book is for those who want to learn more about ancient glass, how it was made, and how it was used in the ancient world.  Below are pictures of a few the objects shown and discussed in the book.

A FOURTH CENTURY TREND IN OPPOSITE COLORED GLASS ON ROMAN VESSELS USING AUBERGINE FOR THE BODY AND PALE GREEN FOR HANDLES AND TRIM

A pictorial essay of a 4th C trend of using aubergine colored glass for the body of a vessel and pale green for handles and other trim.  This type of color combination was also popular in the first century but not as widespread.

                              The Eretz Israel Glass Pavilion is part of the Eretz Museum in Tel Aviv.

–

 

Collection of Elisabeth & Theo Zandbergen

1st C Collection of Elisabeth & Theo Zandbergen

1st C bottle The Windmill Collection of Roman Glass

Collection of Nico F. Bijnsdorp

Collection of Joop van der Groen

Collection of Nico F. Bijnsdorp

Collection of Hans van Rossum

Los Angeles Museum of Art

44R Allaire Collection

16R Allaire Collection

Collection of Ernest Wolf

Israeli Museum

Artemis Gallery

unknown collection

New Orleans Museum of Art

Toledo Mseum of Art

Millea Brothers

Millea Brothers

unknown collection

The Newark Museum of Art

R17 BLUE ROMAN GLASS BOTTLE WITH ITS HISTORY

R17 Blue Roman Bottle of The Allaire Collection

 

 

Date: First Century Size H: 13 cm

 

Description: This beatifull deep blue Roman glass bottle follows the very popular trend for colored glass during the First Century. Blown paper thin into a simple yet elegant shape, it has an elongated globular body and tall neck ending in a tiny but precisely worked rim. The bottle was amazingly repaired using mostly the original pieces. See below what the bottle looked like before the repair.

Ref: Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum, John Hayes, 1975 #115, Ancient and Islamic Glass, Paris, Loudmer, Kevorkian 1985 #149

 

 

FRANKISH OR MEROVINGIAN INDENTED GLASS BOWL

From

The Windmill Collection of Roman Glass

 

Date: End 4^th –  5^th Century AD Sizes:↑ 5.0 cm │ Ø 13.5 cm

 

Provenance: Rhineland, possibly from the environment of Mayen (Germany)

Classification: Isings (1957) form 117. The same group includes Gellep Type 221, 306 and 334 (Pirling 1966) and Trier forms 15b and 28 (U.Koch)

Description: Free blown bowl of thin glass with a faintly round bottom,, no pontil mark. The glassblower made use of a wet wooden spatula and thus applied ten shallow elongated (oval) dents in the sloping wall. The wall is slightly bent outwards at the top, the edge is fairly thinly finished. The indented bowl has a hint of yellow-brown in the transparent glass, suggesting that it was first manufactured after the decline in the central supply of soda  from the Egyptian Wadi El Natrun and the later use of locally extracted brown stone. At that time, the required sand was mined in the rural area around Cologne.

Condition: Reassembled from several large and smaller fragments. This restoration was carried out by the Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne.

Remarks: Indented bowls were common in the transition period from the Western part of the Roman Empire to the Merovingian era. The shape seems to be inspired by metal bowls and bowls from earlier times. In use as a table service, probably as a drinking bowl or serving food (→ Stern 2001). The colors varied from translucent yellow and brownish green in Germany to green in England. The shape is known in Belgium and in the north, north-east and south of Gaul as well as in the Rhineland, England (→ Harden 1956, Anglo-Saxon context) and Northern Italy (Aquileia) and even in Slovenia (Emona, in the Baths of Ljubljana) and Bulgaria.

Early (from Mid 4th century) copies often have an unfinished edge. They are made in clear tinted glass (sometimes with blisters and other impurities). After that period this type remained popular in Northern Gaul until at least the 3rd quarter of the 5th century, perhaps up to and including the 1st quarter of the 6th century. Numerous glasses (with more finished edges in the meantime) have been dug up in Mayen) (Germany).

This indented bowl has a hint of yellow-brown in the transparent glass, suggesting that it was first manufactured after the decline in the central supply of soda (soda) from the Egyptian Wadi El Natrun and the later use of locally extracted brown stone. At that time, the required sand was mined in the rural area around Cologne. The majority of this kind of thin-walled almost colorless or greenish dishes with 8, 9 and 11 pressed dents can be dated towards the end of the 5th century (F.Nauman-Steckner) . Many were deposited at the head or chest level of the deceased during the funeral ceremony, some of them on the chest with the opening down.

Excavations in Northern Europe have shown that there was a lively trade between the peoples of the West and the Scandinavian countries (Ulla Lund Hansen) both during the migrations and during the centuries of the Merovingian kingdom. Imported glasses are hardly found in tombs, but glassware is mainly found in the form of shards in settlements that can be classified as trade centers. They mainly come from the Merovingian region (France), to a lesser extent from the Angel-Saxon environment and almost never from the eastern part of the continent. In Sweden and especially the Norwegian roads, Frankish glasses are more common than in Denmark. Among these glass finds also an indented bowl like this one.

Quite recently, a large fragment of such a greenish dish (with probably 10 large oval dents once) was also found in the River Rhône (southern France), originating from a regional glassworks.

For more details about the type of indented bowls see also Hayes (1975), Koch, Stern 2001.

References:

Landesmuseum Main (G.Harter1999) page 188, inv. Nr.1934/297

 RGM Cologne: La Baum & Salomonson , page 71( Karl Löffler nr.257)

 Musée Archéologique de Strasbourg (Arveiller 1985), nrs.347 en 34)

Musée de Picardie , nr.282 inv.nr.5784

Antikensammlung Bassermann-Jordan, page 43