The article gathers engraved glasses with figured decoration dated from the fourth or early fifth century discovered in the southern half of France. It extends an earlier article devoted to engraved glasses with figurative decoration dated from the second and third centuries (Journal of Glass Studies 65, 2023). These glasses (about 40 pieces), classified according to their style of engraving, come for the most part from workshops in the region of Rome, and the style with lozenge-shaped eyes dominates. However, the share of glasses from workshops in the Rhine Valley is not negligible (more than a quarter). This distribution modifies the earlier maps and suggests more important commercial relations than one would suspect between the south of Gaul and the Rhine region. It cannot be excluded that these exogenous glasses were brought back by soldiers previously stationed on the Rhine.
The numerous glass stones coexisting with precious or semi-precious stones on many medieval objects have been mostly neglected by scholars to date. Often they are difficult to distinguish from natural stones, and if their material is recognized as glass, they are regarded as cheap substitutes (or even fakes) and suspected to be added some time later. But there is a special type of glass gems which are without a doubt medieval: those made of colorless glass with blue inclusions. Such glass stones were probably made somewhere in the northwest of present-day Germany because they are found almost exclusively on objects made in those regions during the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. So, the blue-spotted gems are key pieces for our understanding of at least some aspects of the production and use of medieval glass stones.
The article gathers engraved glasses with figured decoration dated from the fourth or early fifth century discovered in the southern half of France. It extends an earlier article devoted to engraved glasses with figurative decoration dated from the second and third centuries (Journal of Glass Studies 65, 2023). These glasses (about 40 pieces), classified according to their style of engraving, come for the most part from workshops in the region of Rome, and the style with lozenge-shaped eyes dominates. However, the share of glasses from workshops in the Rhine Valley is not negligible (more than a quarter). This distribution modifies the earlier maps and suggests more important commercial relations than one would suspect between the south of Gaul and the Rhine region. It cannot be excluded that these exogenous glasses were brought back by soldiers previously stationed on the Rhine.
From 2013 to 2017, excavations at Sikyon in the northeast Peloponnese region of Greece revealed a Roman period industrial complex in the southeastern corner of the central agora. During one phase of activity (second half of the fourth to mid-fifth century CE), a room at the northern end appears to have functioned as a wineshop. This shop was destroyed in the early fifth century, and excavation revealed a robust assemblage of pottery, glass, metal implements, and coins. Among the glass finds was a lamp with internal wick holder, the westernmost example of the type now identified. This note provides an overview of the deposit from which the lamp was recovered, a discussion of the lamp itself, and the potential of this deposit for shedding light on its function and chronology.
I began my research on twentieth-century Murano Glassware in 2022 at the Centro Studi del Vetro of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. In 2023, thanks to the Rakow Grant, I was able to broaden my scope beyond Murano to glassware producers throughout Italy, which, in the shadow of the fame of Venetian glass, have rarely been studied. This brief report is the result of my research conducted on “The Italian Glassware Industry during the Fascist Regime.” It offers, from both a technical and aesthetic perspective, a glimpse of sources and discourse regarding the production of everyday use glass in Italy during the studied period, as well as a selective list of the major factories. The material I collected is enormously greater than shown here.
