tour 5 of 21
The art of glass
Glass bowl
This glass drinking vessel was made by slumping
a preformed disc into a negative form (mould). The form was rotated
while the glass was forced downwards with a tool, to fill the form
completely. When cold, the glass was ground and a design cut on the
lower part: eight petals in relief and eight in intaglio. Finally
the vessel was polished all
over.
The Greeks had a name
for glass that signified 'transparency' or
'clarity'. It could apply to this glass dish and to
others of this series of elegant and highly polished bowls of
greenish, or completely clear glass with cut decoration. They were
made in the Persian Empire in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and
mirror Persian vessels of silver and bronze in their shapes and
decoration. The glass versions were highly prized, and were
distributed throughout western Asia and the Mediterranean. Some may
have been made in the western provinces of the Persian Empire in
Asia Minor (modern Turkey). This piece is reported to come from
Cumae in southern Italy, (from the mid-nineteenth century
excavations of the Count of Syracuse) which would make it one of
the few examples found outside the Persian Empire. Their use in
Persia is, however, attested by the Greek playwright Aristophanes,
who in The Acharnians
(about 425 BC) tells of Athenian ambassadors at the court of the
Great King of Persia drinking from vessels of clear
glass.