Sale 1314
New York
|
11 December 2003
Price realised
USD 17,925
Estimate
A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE Circa 2nd Century A.D. Deep blue-green in color, the large twenty-sided die incised with a distinct symbol on each of its faces 2 1/16 in. (5.2 cm.) wide
Provenance
Acquired by the current owner's father in Egypt in the 1920s.
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Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.
Pre-Lot Text
THE PROPERTY OF A MARYLAND FINE ARTS PROFESSOR
Jonathan Rendell, Christie’s ’story teller’ for The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, looks at a painting that gives him ‘goose-bumps’
Islamic art specialist Romain Pingannaud on a 13th-century copy of a key compendium on astronomy and mathemetics