A Roman purple glass portrait bust probably of a Late Roman emperor

Footnotes

Provenance:
Schefler Collection, New York, acquired between 1969-2000.
With a report by Dr. C. S. Lightfoot, MA, DPhil (Oxon), dated 25 October 2024 (bust seen on the 13 July 2007).

Miniature three-dimensional portrait busts in glass are rare with examples produced in dark gem-like colours: deep purple as with this example, blue, and dark green, thereby imitating those made in semi-precious stones including lapis lazuli, chalcedony, and amethyst and were possibly cut and engraved in the same workshops. They were cast in open moulds, probably using the lost-wax method, and then subjected to polishing with the finer details including the curls of hair, facial features, and folds of clothing engraved afterwards although the traces of this on this bust have been obscured by its heavy weathering.

The earliest examples are believed to portray gods or goddesses or members of the Julio-Claudian Imperial family, possibly dating from the beginning of the 1st Century A.D. The presence of a beard on this example, however, means that it dates at the earliest, to the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). A small example (2.2cm) in The Corning Museum of Glass is believed to be of a tetrach or the Emperor Maxentius (D.B. Harden, et al., Glass of the Caesars, exhibition catalogue, Olivetti, Milan, 1987, p. 23, no. 3; D.B. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass. Volume One, 1997, pp. 28-9, no. 25), and another similar from the Edward S. Harkness Gift is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, obj. no. 26.7.1272. A 2.2cm high blue bust in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, is considered to be that of Marcus Aurelius dating from the late 2nd Century (D.F. Grose, Early Ancient Glass. Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, (Hudson Hill Press, New York), 1989, pp. 358-9, fig. 172.

These smaller examples could have been attached to phalerae or parade helmets, while slightly larger busts with the drill-hole at an angle could have been mounted in the centre of silver presentational dishes like two from the Boscoreale Treasure buried during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 (F. Baratte, La trésor d'orfèvrerie romaine de Boscoreale, (Musée du Louvre, Paris), 1986, figs on pp. 16-17). The size of this bust and the vertical drilled hole on the underside suggests that it was intended to be mounted into a small sculpture made in another, presumably precious material. As such it may be compared with the opaque bright blue portrait bust, possibly of Constantius II, found in Cologne and now in the Römisch-Germanisches Museum there (Harden et al. 1987, p. 24).

Dr. C. S. Lightfoot believes this bust may be taken to represent the Emperor Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363), the only emperor of the Constantinian Dynasty who was represented with a beard. The choice of purple glass indicates the subject is an Imperial figure.