Roman Black Glass Bead Necklace String

1ST-4TH CENTURY A.D. AND LATER

11 7/8 in. (14.9 grams, 30.3 cm).

A designer necklace composed of mainly oblate beads, central feature composed of large barrel-shaped bead with a suspended glass ring below; restrung. [No Reserve]

Provenance

From the London, UK, art market in the 1990s.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

For examples of similar black Roman beads see Then-Obluska, J., ‘Beads and pendants from the Hellenistic to early Byzantine Red Sea port of Berenike, Egypt, Seasons 2014 and 2015’ in Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 27/1, 2018, pp.203–234, figs. 7 (esp.8,10,11), 8 no.14, 10b no.55.

Footnotes

In the Roman period there was a strong formal and chromatic diversity of glass beads used for necklaces and bracelets. The most common beads in forms were small biconical (lenticular), barrel-shaped, spherical and annular; the most common colours were dark blue, followed by green and yellow. The succession of glass beads often imitates jewellery made of costly materials (gold, silver, semi-precious and precious stones). Green, blue-green, blue, yellow, and black drawn and rounded glass beads (like here) are late Roman types.

CONDITION

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LOT 0905