BOWL __with DIAMOND-SHAPED MOTIFS of Nico F. Bijnsdorp
4th century AD. Possibly Western Empire.
H= 4.4 cm. D over lugs = 11.0 cm. D rim= 8.5 cm. D base= 3.9 cm. Weight 109 gr.
Classification: Isings 1957: Form 42d.
Condition: Intact. Excellent condition.
Technique: Free blown. Tooled. Trailing applied.
Description: Transparent pale yellowish green glass. Small, shallow bowl __with plain rim and rounded lip. Wall curving down and in. Disk shaped base (probably from separate gather), pushed upward and with large pontil mark. A horizontal flange applied just below the rim, pulled out at four sides to form horizontal lugs and creating a square appearance. Tooling marks on lugs. The wall decorated with unmarvered threads, one wound anti clockwise in two descendent spirals from upper to lower wall. Further bands of trails (as continuation of the first) wound around body and tooled to form adjoining diamond-shaped motifs, alternating with triangles.
Remarks: Only one parallel could be found in the Corning Museum of Glass, formerly in the Ray Winfield Smith Collection. Smith believed that the bowl is Islamic and from the seventh to eighth century AD. Whitehouse however, considers the bowl as a small, simplified version of Isings form 42d (see NFB 058) and dates it 4th century AD.
Provenance: Ex collection Paul E. Cuperus, Laren (NL), 2010.
Published: Groen & Rossum 2011, Romeins Glas uit Particulier Bezit, Thermenmuseum Heerlen (NL), p. 32. Cuperus 2009, Glass from the Roman Empire, No. PEC 066.
Exhibited: Thermenmuseum Heerlen (NL), Romeins Glas uit Particulier Bezit, 29 April – 28 August 2011, No. 027.
References: Whitehouse 2001, Corning Museum, No. 651.