ROMAN GLASS JAR WITH HUNTING SCENE

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ROMAN GLASS JAR WITH HUNTING SCENE (AcoaG # 6)

of

The Augustinus Collection of Ancient Glass

Photo: AcoaG.63

 Date: Late III – IV century A.D. Form:  Kisa:  F364  |  Moirin Jean: 73

Size: ↑9.8 cm | Ø body:10.4 cm | Ø Mouth : 7.9 cm | Ø Base max: 6.2cm| Weight: 124.8 g

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ENGRAVING on JAR:  ACTAEON MOST LIKELY, HUNTING A DOE AND THREE STAGS

AcoaG 63.a – g | Roman Glass Bowl with hunting scene. Illustrations by AcoaG 2019.

 

Description: Spherical bottle with wide, low neck of translucent glass with a greenish to golden-yellow tint; skillfully engraved hunter with bow and four animals in bush like scenery. A male or female hunter, dressed in tunic and boots, holds a bow in the left hand directed to four animals; the right hand is pointed upwards as if an arrow has just been released towards: 1. a doe looking backwards to the hunter, 2. a stag grazing and in no hurry, 3. and 4. two stags running to the right; all decorated with clumps of foliage resembling palmettos.

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Photo of bottom of jar AcoaG.63

 

Technique: Blown, cut off rim  and with an abraded pontilmark as a centrepiece turned into a stylized flower with 10 petals on the bottom; skillfully engraved in one line of thickness, as it is for the total of the depicted scenery.

 

Condition: Complete, with pieces broken off from the rim. One crack, leading from the figure holding the bow to the rim. Few small and some larger bubbles all over the glass. Weathered and iridescent, sand encrusted, almost impossible to look through and experience the well executed scenery of a mythological and literary background.

 

Remarks: In comparison to a jar with hunting scene in the Corning Museum of Glass, New York (Smith Collection: Accession Number 55.1.1) the line of cutting is of one thickness, where the Corning depiction seems to be a combination of a wide and narrow line. There can be no doubt that both jars originate from the same workshop, for the style in technique and representation comes extremely close.

 

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Corning Jar 55.1.1

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2. No bottom line is depicted, nor is there any form of text underneath the rim, as is the case with the jar in the Corning Museum of Glass. The Corning jar shows 16 petals around an abraded pontil mark. – The rosette may be compared with that found on the bottom of the San Marco bucket (Harden and Whitehouse) -.

 

3. On the so called: ‘Bowl from Leuna’, appear the names of Artemis and Actaion in retrograde Greek writing. The action and way of dressing are described in such a way that the style of engraving helps to detect the figure on the bowl of the Corning as: Artemis. Both are examples of a Hunting Scene, from the second half of the second century A.D. (From a grave at Leuna, former German Democratic Republic. Glass of the Caesars, 1997, pp 197-198, no 107.)

 

4. On the fragments of another glass bowl from Dura-Europos – on the Euphrates, (Clairmont, 1963, 57-9, no 235, pl. XXIV) – the bath of the virgin Artemis is favoured, added the scenes of Actaeons death.

 

5. It must be remembered that the decoration was originally meant to be seen through the inside of the bowl, according to D.B.Harden in Glass of the Caesars. This explains why the inscriptions are engraved in reverse on the outside. But with the jar from The Corning Museum of Glass this is not the case.

 

Provenance: From a private dutch collection, previously unpublished; likely from Rhenish or North-Italian origin, following the descriptions by Ray W. Smith (1957), Donald B. Harden (1987), David Whitehouse (1997).

Bibliography:

R.W. Smith, Glass from the Ancient World, 1957, pp 177-179, no. 358.

Fremersdorf, Niessen Collection, 1911, pl. 28, 1967, pp. 165-166, pl. 218

D.B. Harden et D. Whitehouse et al., Glass of the Caesars, 1987, p. 207, no 115. # 457 Whitehouse, Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, 1997, Vol. I, pp 268-270, no. 457. Jar with Hunting Scene.