Large Roman Ribbed Glass Wine Vessel

A short silver spoon with shallow piriform bowl, raised neck with movable pinned hinge attached to the hexagonal-section handle and shortened polyhedral knob finial, allowing the handle to be folded into the bowl. 28 grams, 11.2 cm long



Early 1990s London collection. Acquired on the UK art market. From a private collection, Lancashire, UK.

As today, the spoon was used as a measure for dosage in ancient times. Both the cochlear and the ligula could have been used to measure different quantities, particularly in the practice of medicine and in the kitchen. Isidore (Origines, XVI, 26.3) tells us that the cochlear was the smallest unit size and was worth half a drachma.

A group of eight glass vessels from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic civilisations, of various types and dates: a pale green bulbous jar with a flared neck and rim, blobs to the neck and shoulder; a green bottle with waisted cylindrical body and short neck decorated with raised vertical ribs and hatching; a miniature piriform green bottle with globular foot and slightly flared neck; a clear glass miniature bottle of squat form, with a tubular neck and remains of iridescence to the internal surface; a pale green bottle with a squat body, long tubular neck and everted rim; a piriform green bottle with high shoulder and rounded base, tubular neck; a barrel-shaped pale blue vessel with inverted rim; an amber-brown coloured vessel of carinated form, wheel-cit bands to the equator and rim. 387 grams total, 40-97 mm



Acquired 1960s-1990s. From the late Alison Barker collection, a retired London barrister.

An unfinished copper-alloy brooch casting of simple fibula form, with visible seams. 6.1 grams, 44 mm



Acquired in the 1970s. Important European collection.