Details

LOT 0071

Hellenistic Iridescent Pale Aqua Glass Bowl

MID 2ND-EARLY 1ST CENTURY B.C.

6 1/8 in. (374 grams, 15.7 cm wide).

Conical in profile, aqua glass with three incised bands below the rim on the inner face.

Provenance

Dr Jutaro Kawabe, Nagoya, Japan, his collection formed in the 1960s-1970s.
with Hoshigaoka Gallery until the late 1990s.
Private collection, London, UK.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12949-245243.

Literature

Cf. similar bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no.81.10.36.

Footnotes

On ancient glass, iridescence is the soft play of colour that develops as the surface ages and becomes silica-rich. Minute layers form over time and break light into shifting blues, greens and golds. It is not a modern finish but something time has drawn out of the material itself, so the pattern and palette are unique to each piece. Collectors prize good, stable iridescence because it lifts the form: ribs read more crisply, profiles glow, and simple vessels take on depth and movement. Museums now tend to preserve these surfaces rather than polish them away, recognising both their beauty and what they tell us about an object’s long life (though it is not, by itself, a dating test). For display, iridescent glass performs brilliantly under gentle, directional light, where the colours “turn” as the vessel is moved. Well-preserved, even iridescence of this quality is not common and adds materially to the presence—and desirability—of the piece.