Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

A Late Roman green glass lamp or beaker image 1
A Late Roman green glass lamp or beaker image 2
The Jack Alfred Goldhill Collection of Ancient Glass (Lots 137-156)
Lot 152

A Late Roman green glass lamp or beaker

22 November – 9 December 2024, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, New Bond Street

£600 - £800

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our European Ceramics specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

A Late Roman green glass lamp or beaker

Circa 4th-5th Century A.D.
15.2cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 23 April 1980, lot 13.
Jack Alfred Goldhill collection, UK, acquired from the above sale; and thence by descent to the present owner.

Such vessels have been excavated in contexts suggesting that they were used as lamps and found with traces of oil remaining inside. The lamp would have contained water with oil and a wick floating on top, and would have been suspended in a metal stand. Glasses of this type are in numerous museum collections; see an example in A. Oliver Jr, Ancient Glass in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, 1980, no. 176.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone with dedication inscription of King Lipit-Ishtar of Isin

A small Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone inscribed for King Sin-Kashid of Uruk

A Neo-Assyrian or Neo-Hittite bronze helmet with pelta-shaped cheek-pieces

An Attic pottery tankard with geometric decoration

A Greek pottery alabastron in the form of a greaved leg

A Greek terracotta female figure with a bird perched on her shoulder