The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 29, no. 7 (March, 1971)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 29, no. 7 (March, 1971)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 29, no. 7 (March, 1971)
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i :r; . .-_: 6-,<br />
<strong>The</strong> idea <strong>of</strong> protecting a design in gold by means <strong>of</strong> a transparent substance<br />
was conceived <strong>of</strong> as early as the sixth century B.C.: in the Etruscan earring <strong>of</strong><br />
that date (shown at the upper left), gold filigree is covered by a rock-crystal disk.<br />
But the practice <strong>of</strong> placing gold leaf between two glass casings in a drinking<br />
vessel did <strong>no</strong>t develop until about 200 B.C. It lasted into Byzantine times, some<br />
six hundred years later. In Hellenistic gold glass (the fragment at the upper right),<br />
the floral designs were fashioned from small geometric bits <strong>of</strong> gold leaf- lozenges,<br />
triangles, and the like-whereas in Roman and Byzantine gold glass<br />
(the two fragments below, showing the figures <strong>of</strong> Ocean and St. Lawrence),<br />
the designs were formed by contouring large areas <strong>of</strong> gold leaf and then scratching<br />
details through.<br />
326<br />
Above, left: Etruscan, late VI<br />
century B.C. Gold and rock<br />
crystal, diameter 2 7/16 inches.<br />
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 40.11.9.<br />
Right: Hellenistic (Alexandria),<br />
about 200 B.C. Gold glass. Rogers<br />
Fund, 23.160.76. Below, left:<br />
Roman, III century A.D. Gold glass.<br />
Gift <strong>of</strong> J. Pierpont Morgan,<br />
17.194.2343. Right: Early Christian,<br />
late IV century A.D. Gold glass.<br />
Rogers Fund, 18.145.3
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