Bowl
Early 1st century BCE
Medium
Glass, mosaic glass technique
Dimensions
5 × 9.4 × 9.4 cm (2 × 3 3/4 × 3 3/4 in.)
Classification
bowl
Department
Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
61905
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This bowl contains yellow threads wound around colorless canes of glass that were then fused together. The spiral pattern in the body of bowls of this kind has given them the name network mosaic bowls. Most known examples were recovered in 1900 from a shipwreck that probably occurred around 80 B.C. off the southwest coast of Greece near Antikythera. The discovery of similar examples in Syria, Crete, Greece, and southern Italy has led to the theory that these distinctive bowls were made in the ea...
About the Artist
Ancient Roman
The artists attributed to "Ancient Roman" in museum collections represent the anonymous craftsmen who produced the vast output of sculpture, frescoes, mosaics, and reliefs defining Roman visual culture from the Republic (c. 509–27 BCE) to the late Empire (c. 395 CE). Individual identities remain elusive, as Roman makers were typically viewed as skilled tradesmen—often enslaved Greeks or provincial...