This is a list of surviving ancient Roman gold glass portraits of the finer painted sort. The majority of surviving Roman gold glass pieces are the cut-off bottoms of drinking glasses made with unpainted gold leaf. These sometimes bear the names of individuals and were probably commemorative gifts on a special occasion such as a wedding anniversary or winning a contest. Achieving a good likeness was probably not an aim, and certainly not an achievement of this class of object, and they are not included here. The objects here belong to a smaller class of finely painted portrait miniatures, although a few seem also to have been originally placed in cups. Following a table summarizing the basic information, individual portraits are discussed in separate sections.
Corpus Portrait Location Date Size Inscription Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, Italy. Traditionally, but wrongly, identified as Galla Placidia with Valentinian III and Honoria. See section below for full account. 3rd or 4th century in diameter Greek: Breck 1927, p. 353(bounneri kerami, meaning uncertain; maybe "Bunneri the potter", using an Egyptian Greek form of κεραμεύς, kerameus) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City 250–300 in diameter Greek: Weitzmann 1979, p. 287(Gennadi chrōmati pammousi, "Gennadios, most skilled in music")Evans 2001, p. 9 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City early 4th century in diameter no inscription Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York 3rd century in diameter Latin: ("Anatolius, rejoice!") Victoria and Albert Museum, London 3rd or 4th century in diameter no inscription British Museum, London ? in diameter no inscription Archeological Museum, Bologna, Italy 1st quarter of 4th century in diameterDucati 1929, pp. 236–240 Latin transcription of Greek: ("Drink and you will live") Archeological Museum, Bologna, Italy 1st quarter of 4th century in diameterDucati 1929, p. 236 no inscription Archeological Museum, Bologna, ItalyDucati 1929, pp. 233–235 4th century in diameter Latin: (probably, the name of the boy) Archeological Museum, Arezzo, ItalyLapatin 2015, p. 89 pl. 59, p. 237 200–250 in diameter no inscription Museo Sacro, Vatican LibraryMetropolitan Museum of Art 1982, p. 98 first half of the 3rd century in diameter Latin: (perhaps Gregori bibe et propina tuis, "Gregory, drink and drink to thine") Vatican Library ? ? no inscription Museo Sacro, Vatican Library 3rd century in diameterLapatin 2015, p. 87 pl. 57 Latin: , "To sweet-souled Eusebius"(?) Vatican MuseumsLega 2012, p. 276 + p. 277 fig. 7a,b 3rd or 4th centuryLega 2012, p. 263 ? Latin: (perhaps a misspelling of congregatus, so "Gregorius [and] Simplicius together") Catacomb of San Panfilo, RomeWhitehouse 1996, pp. 10–11 4th century or earlier ? no inscription Museo Civico, Turin, Italy mid-3rd century in diameter no inscription Museo Civico, Turin, ItalyArte tardoromana, medaglione con figura femminile del II sec e con figura maschile del II-III sec.JPG shows the two Turin medallions together 3rd century ? no inscription Vatican MuseumsHowells 2010, pp. 97–98 17th-century copy of a lost original ? Latin: [partly illegible] Vaiani 2014, p. 244Garrucci 1795, pl. XLI p. 1, p. 84(Romanisation of Greek: "Drink [and] you will live")
Brescia medallion
The portrait medallion is a part of the ornamentation of the so-called Desiderius Cross, 9th-century processional crux gemmata now in Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, Italy.
The medallion is often referred to as a portrait of Galla Placidia and her children, but the current scholarly consensus is strongly against this 18th-century identification.
Some 19th-century scholars, including Raffaele Garrucci and Hermann Vopel, suspected the work to be a fake.Garrucci 1858, p. 83; pl. XL, 7Vopel 1899, no. 507 The earliest mention of the medallion comes from a 17th-century inventory. In 1762, Francesco Antonio Zaccaria recalled that he saw it circa 1725.
Several details indicate the Egyptian, perhaps Alexandrian origin of the medallion. Both words of the inscription () end in iota, possibly indicating the Ancient Greek dialect of Egypt; , then, means "potter". Stylistically, the painting is closely related to the 3rd-century mummy portraits found in the Faiyum Oasis. The costumes are more consistent with the contemporary fashions in Egypt than in Rome itself. In particular, the mantle worn by the middle figure is not fastened by a fibula, but instead knotted; one parallel for this is a 3rd-century Coptic tapestry medallion, now in the Hermitage Museum, showing the goddess Gaea with her mantle knotted in a similar way.Breck 1927, p. 354 The peculiar hair style of the older woman is unknown in Roman portraiture, but can be found on some 3rd-century plaster mummy masks from Egypt.One example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: link.
Howells (2015) summarizes the research into the Brescia medallion demonstrating its connection to contemporaneous Roman-Egyptian art (in particular the Fayum mummy portraits) as well as linguistic arguments supporting the authenticity of the artefact based on 18th century scholarship.Daniel Thomas Howells (2015). "A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (PDF)." London: the British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council). Accessed 2 October 2016, p. 7: "Other important contributions to scholarship included the publication of an extensive summary of gold glass scholarship under the entry ‘Fonds de coupes’ in Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq’s comprehensive Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie in 1923. Leclercq updated Vopel’s catalogue, recording 512 gold glasses considered to be genuine, and developed a typological series consisting of eleven iconographic subjects: biblical subjects; Christ and the saints; various legends; inscriptions; pagan deities; secular subjects; male portraits; female portraits; portraits of couples and families; animals; and Jewish symbols. In a 1926 article devoted to the brushed technique gold glass known as the Brescia medallion (Pl. 1), Fernand de Mély challenged the deeply ingrained opinion of Garrucci and Vopel that all examples of brushed technique gold glass were in fact forgeries. The following year, de Mély’s hypothesis was supported and further elaborated upon in two articles by different scholars. A case for the Brescia medallion’s authenticity was argued for, not on the basis of its iconographic and orthographic similarity with pieces from Rome (a key reason for Garrucci’s dismissal), but instead for its close similarity to the Fayoum mummy portraits from Egypt. Indeed, this comparison was given further credence by Walter Crum’s assertion that the Greek inscription on the medallion was written in the Alexandrian dialect of Egypt. De Mély noted that the medallion and its inscription had been reported as early as 1725, far too early for the idiosyncrasies of Graeco-Egyptian word endings to have been understood by forgers."
"Comparing the iconography of the Brescia medallion with other more closely dated objects from Egypt, Hayford Peirce then proposed that brushed technique medallions were produced in the early 3rd century, whilst de Mély himself advocated a more general 3rd-century date. With the authenticity of the medallion more firmly established, Joseph Breck was prepared to propose a late 3rd to early 4th century date for all of the brushed technique cobalt blue-backed portrait medallions, some of which also had Greek inscriptions in the Alexandrian dialect. Although considered genuine by the majority of scholars by this point, the unequivocal authenticity of these glasses was not fully established until 1941 when Gerhart Ladner discovered and published a photograph of one such medallion still in situ, where it remains to this day, impressed into the plaster sealing in an individual loculus in the Catacomb of Panfilo in Rome (Pl. 2). Shortly after in 1942, Morey used the phrase ‘brushed technique’ to categorize this gold glass type, the iconography being produced through a series of small incisions undertaken with a gem cutter’s precision and lending themselves to a chiaroscuro-like effect similar to that of a fine steel engraving simulating brush strokes." Jás Elsner (2007) also contends that the Brescia medallion likely depicts a family from Alexandria, since the inscription is in the Alexandrian dialect of Greek, and provides possible dates ranging from the early-3rd to mid-5th century AD, before it found its way to Italy where it adorned a 7th-century cross.Jás Elsner (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World, 11-18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. , p. 17, Figure 1.3 on p. 18.
Ficoroni medallion
Fakes Gold-glass forgeries are known to have been forged all through the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1759, French antiquarian Anne Claude de Caylus wrote that contemporary Roman dealers were selling gold-glass reproductions to tourists who thought them original.Caylus 1759, p. 195, quote: "Ce moyen a été retrouvé à Rome, il y a très-peu d'années; j'en ai jugé par quelques morceaux très- bien traités: on s'en est servi pour tromper les Etrangers; mais celui qui possédoit ce petit secret est mort sans le publier"Breck 1927, pp. 353–354 Metropolitan Museum of Art has what are thought to be two 18th-century fake group portraits, while the British Museum has two 19th-century ones.
See also Gold glass Roman portraiture Fayum mummy portraits
Notes
References
google books preview Pericle Ducati (1929). I vetri dorati romani nel Museo Civico di Bologna. Elsner, Jás (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style", in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World, 11–18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. .
Internet Archive preview Howells, Daniel Thomas (2010). Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum, PhD Thesis. Howells, Daniel Thomas (2015). "A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (PDF)." London: the British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council). Accessed 2 October 2016. google books preview
Metropolitan Museum of Art (1982). The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art. .
External links