DESCRIPTION: Intact. A Roman glass dish. The glass is lightweight and transparent, with a very pale yellow-green color, free-blown, with a shallow bowl shape, the walls rising and spreading gradually upward to a broad flattened rim that has been folded back on itself for additional thickness and strength. The dish rests on a neatly made ring base, probably made from a single trail of glass. A distinct pontil mark appears at the bottom center, corresponding to a convex area at the interior center of the dish. Some of the surface is covered in a very thin film of iridescence, with a few areas of very light tan encrustation. Custom display stand included.

PROVENANCE: Formerly in an American private collection; also formerly with Charles Ede, London, 1992.

PUBLISHED: Christies auction catalogue, ANTIQUITIES, 16 June, 2006, New York, illustrated in color.

COMPARISONS: E. Marianne Stern, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, Ernesto Wolf Collection, Germany, 2001, Cat. Nos. 112-114 for examples of circular dishes of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Centuries, all with shared characteristics as this piece, such as broad flat rim, ring base, etc. Also, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco & Israel Antiquities Authority, Ancient Glass from the Holy Land, 1998, page 14 for illustration of a similar Roman glass dish with raised center point.