Two Byzantine & Roman Glass Pitchers

Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Byzantine and Roman. A pair of blown glass vessels drawn from the long Levantine glassmaking tradition. The larger, likely Byzantine, rises from a broad cylindrical body on a flaring foot to a slender neck and a pinched, beak-like mouth, its strap handle looped and thumb-rested above the rim; the pale yellow-green body carries dense earthen encrustation and shifting iridescence. Its companion is a petite juglet of aubergine glass, tall and tapering with a thickened folded rim, a small applied loop handle drawn in deep cobalt, and a surface shimmering violet, rose, and silver where centuries of burial have bloomed across the glass. Both forms served domestic and cosmetic purposes, decanting oils, unguents, and perfumes, the small scale of the juglet suiting precious contents. Each rests on an included custom acrylic mount. The iridescence prized on ancient glass is a product of decay rather than design. Buried in damp soil, the alkali-rich Roman and Byzantine glass batch slowly leaches sodium and potassium, leaving behind microscopically thin silica-rich laminae. Light striking these stacked layers interferes with itself, throwing off the peacock film of violet, gold, and silver that collectors call bloom or weathering. Aubergine and amethyst glass owes its color to manganese, added by Roman workshops as a decolorizer to counteract the green cast of iron impurities; used in excess, or altered by long exposure, manganese tints the metal the purple-brown seen here. The pinched trefoil mouth and looped thumb-rest handle of the larger jug belong to a family of Levantine table wares produced in the coastal workshops of Syria-Palestine, where glassblowing had been invented in the first century BCE and where production continued without real interruption into the Islamic period. Item # 205187

Estimate:$200

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