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Lot Essay
According to the old label these large collection of moulds, or cretule, comes from a Tarentine workshop active during the Hellenistic period which produced glass intaglios in large quantities 'for the masses', as Pliny described them. Examples of this type, usually of oval shape and depicting deities such as Aphrodite, Apollo and Dionysos, are lots 105 and 106.
A particularly popular scene present in this group is the one showing a drunken Dionysos being helped by a winged Eros, which also appears on glass intaglio in several other collections, cf. D. Berges, Antike Siegel und Glasgemmen der Sammlung Maxwell Sommerville, Mainz, 2002, p. 54, no. 261.
Another well-known motif represented in this group is Nike writing on a shield, which can be found in several stone and glass intaglios from the Hellenistic period to the Roman Republic, cf. D. Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems, Oxford, 1999, pp. 68-69, nos. 167-168.
For a technological study of the production of glass gems and glass cameos, see J. Ogden, Jewellery of the Ancient World, London, 1982, p. 129, fig. 7-8, and C. Weiss, 'Beobachtungen an Glaskameen der Sammlung Bergau,' in R. Lierke, Antike Glastöpferei, Mainz, 1999, pp. 80-82.
A particularly popular scene present in this group is the one showing a drunken Dionysos being helped by a winged Eros, which also appears on glass intaglio in several other collections, cf. D. Berges, Antike Siegel und Glasgemmen der Sammlung Maxwell Sommerville, Mainz, 2002, p. 54, no. 261.
Another well-known motif represented in this group is Nike writing on a shield, which can be found in several stone and glass intaglios from the Hellenistic period to the Roman Republic, cf. D. Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems, Oxford, 1999, pp. 68-69, nos. 167-168.
For a technological study of the production of glass gems and glass cameos, see J. Ogden, Jewellery of the Ancient World, London, 1982, p. 129, fig. 7-8, and C. Weiss, 'Beobachtungen an Glaskameen der Sammlung Bergau,' in R. Lierke, Antike Glastöpferei, Mainz, 1999, pp. 80-82.