A ROMAN SHELL DISH CIRCA 3RD CENTURY A.D.

拍品描述

A ROMAN GLASS SHELL-FORM DISH, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY A.D. Of shallow circular form, the rim moulded into a series of short radiating ribs that evoke the fluted edge of a scallop shell, the body rising gently from a small central depression. The vessel is worked in colourless or pale glass, now wholly transformed by burial: the surface bears a dense overlay of earthen encrustation in ochre and russet tones, broken in places by patches of silvery and rose-gold iridescence where the weathered layers of the glass catch the light. The fabric is thin and the profile light, the shell-form perimeter retaining its scalloped articulation despite losses and chipping along the edge. The shell is among the most enduring decorative forms in Roman material culture, associated with Venus and with the marine cortège that surrounds her, and by extension with themes of birth, fertility, and abundance. As a dish form, the scallop translates this iconography into a serviceable tableware shape, suitable for sweetmeats, condiments, or small offerings. Shell-form vessels appear in Roman silver, in moulded terra sigillata, and in glass, the last category exploiting the translucence of the medium to suggest the pearly interior of the living shell. Roman glass of the third century was produced on an industrial scale across the Empire, with major workshops in the Syro-Palestinian coast, the Rhineland, and Italy. By this date, free-blowing and mould-blowing had largely displaced the earlier cast and core-formed techniques, allowing the rapid serial production of small open forms such as this one. The iridescence visible across the present dish is not original but a product of long burial: alkali leaches from the glass surface in damp soil, leaving behind microscopically thin laminae that refract light into the characteristic spectrum of pinks, greens, and golds prized by later collectors. What the Roman user would have seen was a clear or faintly tinted vessel, its shell form legible at a glance. This dish exemplifies the domestic register of Roman glass production in the imperial centuries, in which mythological reference and everyday utility coincided in a single inexpensive object. Its survival, with the shell-form rim intact and the burial iridescence undisturbed, illustrates the transformations through which such pieces have reached the modern collector. Diameter: 5.5cm

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