Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
Lot 26*
A Late Roman pale green glass wheel-engraved flask
6 July 2021, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £4,845 inc. premium
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Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
A Late Roman pale green glass wheel-engraved flask
Probably Egypt, circa 4th-5th Century A.D.
With cut-off rim on a funnel neck, the elongated ovoid body with wheel-abraded decoration of two birds, probably Chukar partridges, flanked by a flowering shrub and a tree, set on a conical foot with a hollow-tubular base-ring, 23cm high
Probably Egypt, circa 4th-5th Century A.D.
With cut-off rim on a funnel neck, the elongated ovoid body with wheel-abraded decoration of two birds, probably Chukar partridges, flanked by a flowering shrub and a tree, set on a conical foot with a hollow-tubular base-ring, 23cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Herbert James Powell Bomford (1896-1979) collection, London.
The Property of H. J. P. Bomford, Esq.; Sotheby's, London, 3-4 July 1978, lot 57.
with Sheppard and Cooper Ltd, London (An Exhibition of Roman and Pre-Roman Glass, 9-25 November 1978, no. 57).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1988, lot 34.
with Asprey Antiques Ltd., London.
Private collection, USA, acquired from the above 7 Mary 1997.
For a flask of similar form with simple bands of wheel-cut decoration, dated to the 4th-5th Century, cf. D. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 3, New York, p.157, fig. 1167. The above lot and the Corning flask belong to a group of wheel-abraded footed flasks from the Eastern Mediterranean which include the 'Highdown Goblet'. This finely decorated glass goblet showing a hunting scene, with a Greek inscription, originated from Egypt but was discovered in a 5th Century Anglo-Saxon grave at Highdown Hill in Sussex, indicating distant trade and Roman contact.
Partridge motifs are also seen on Coptic textiles, such as a similar woven representation of a partridge on a 4th-5th Century Coptic panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. 1265-1888. The stylised plants depicted on the flask are also reminiscent of Coptic textile designs.