Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
Lot 116*
A Roman obsidian skyphos
6 July 2023, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £89,300 inc. premium
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Siobhan Quin
Senior Specialist
Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
A Roman obsidian skyphos
Circa 1st Century B.C.–1st Century A.D.
5.9cm high, 13.4cm diam. incl. handles
Circa 1st Century B.C.–1st Century A.D.
5.9cm high, 13.4cm diam. incl. handles
Footnotes
Provenance:
The Ludwig Herinek collection, Vienna, 1970s.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 6 October 2011, lot 205.
The Nico F. Bijnsdorp Collection (NFB 266), acquired from the above sale.
Exhibited:
The National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden (NL), "GLASS", 1 June 2020 – 28 February 2021.
Obsidian vessels rarely survive from the Roman period. The technique of engraving decorative details onto these vessels is known to us primarily from surviving fragments, though the stippled decoration on this skyphos is without parallel. For an undecorated skyphos see an example sold at Christie's, New York, 5 & 6 December 2001, lot 626; for an obsidian fragment cut with a design of vine leaves, see the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 17.194.2359.
Though survivals are rare, it is apparent that obsidian vessels were a luxury object in the Roman world. See S. M. Goldstein, Pre-Roman and Early Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, 1979, p. 285, no. 858 for an obsidian vessel fragment formerly in the Sangiorgi collection with engraved design; the fragmentary remains of a handle in the form of a feline demonstrates how ornate these luxury objects were in antiquity. In May 1954 three obsidian skyphoi, with similar handles to the present lot, were excavated in Villa San Marco, Castellammare di Stabia. They are ostentatiously decorated with inlays of gold and mosaic depicting Egyptianising scenes. They are now in the Naples Archaeological Museum (inv. nos 294471/2/3; reproduced in S. Walker and P. Higgs (eds.), Cleopatra of Egypt, from History to Myth, London, 2001, p. 284, fig. 9.5).