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Lot 70*

A late Roman green glass conical beaker or lamp

7 July 2016, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,875 inc. premium

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A late Roman green glass conical beaker or lamp
Circa 4th-5th Century A.D.
The upper part of the body encircled with a band of applied and marvered blue blobs, horizontal wheel-cut bands below, with a plain slightly out-turned cut-off rim ground flat, 10cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property of a gentleman.
Christie's, London, The Alfred Wolkenberg Collection of Ancient Glass, 09 July 1991, lot 80.
Alfred Wolkenberg (d. 1990) Collection, New York, 1950s-1980.

Literature:
Such conical vessels are believed to have used both as lamps to be inserted within a polycandelon or some other form of container, or as drinking beakers where the row of lightly raised blue blobs would afford a firm grip of the vessel. For a more detailed discussion with other examples cf. D. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 1, Corning, 1997, p. 213, no. 366.

Additional information

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