RHYTON of Nico F. Bijnsdorp
Roman Rhyton-nfb-258
Late 3rd – mid 4th century AD. Rhineland, probably Cologne.
L = 32.5 cm. H = 26.5 cm. D rim = 7.8 cm. Weight 175 gr.
Classification: Morin-Jean 1913: Form 124. Isings 1957: Form 113. Goethert-Polaschek1977: Form 165.
Condition: Broken and mended.
Technique: Free blown and tooled. Thread decoration applied.
Description: Transparent pale green glass __with turquoise and opaque white threads. Slightly averted mouth __with thickened and rounded rim. The S-form body evenly tapering to the closed tip. At approx. 4 cm below the rim a horizontal opaque white thread is encircling the body. From there 7 turquoise and 10 opaque white threads run in a spiral downwards from upper left to lower right throughout the body to the tip. Upper part of threads unmarvered.
Remarks: Rhytons or drinking horns were made with either an open or closed tip. The drinker held the open-tip rhyton in his raised hand and poured the liquid into his mouth through the open tip. The closed-tip rhyton was used like a beaker. The latter way of pouring is shown on the Worringen beaker in the Toledo Museum of Art in an engraved scene wherein Bacchus pours wine from a rhyton like this one into a shallow bowl held by a partly draped woman, probably Venus.
This type of rhyton is a typical Rhenish product. Most examples are in museum collections in Cologne, Trier, Bonn, Strasbourg, Worms and Mainz but were further spread into France, Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Very close parallels are in the collections of the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities (from a grave of a high ranked warrior in Östergötland) and of the Danish National Museum (from a grave of the “Woman from Himlingøje”).
Provenance: Collection David and Jennifer Giles, London, UK., Collection W. Bastiaan Blok, Noordwijk, Netherlands.
Published: Pierre Bergé Paris, 17 June 2010, No. 258D.
References: Corning Museum of Glass, Accession number 2004.1.13. Fremersdorf 1984, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, No. 265. Fremersdorf 1962, Römisch-Germanisches Museum Köln, Tafel 92. Fremersdorf 1961, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Tafel 42 – 43. Follmann-Schulz 1992, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Nos. 34 – 35. Goethert-Polaschek 1977, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, No. 1542.