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LOT 0968
Roman Glass Toilet Bottle
1ST CENTURY A.D.
4 in. (73 grams, 10 cm).
With globular body, short everted rim and cylindrical neck, concave base.
ProvenanceEx London, UK, collection, 1980-1990s.
LiteratureCf. Whitehouse, D., Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol.1, New York, 1997, item 190, for the type.
FootnotesThe bottle should be associated with Isings form 6 or Tommaso type 7. Small bottles of this typology are among the earliest known blown glass. The everted rim seems to distinguish examples made in Italy and the western Mediterranean provinces from those of the Eastern Mediterranean, on which the rim is usually folded in the form of a flange.
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Roman Marble Capital Fragment
5th century A.D.Estimate: £200 - 300 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £100
Sub-triangular in plan with arched segmented panel with ribbed surface, raised spandrel detail. 6.2 kg, 31 cm
Private collection, England. -
Roman Marble Head of a Young Man
2nd-3rd century A.D.Estimate: £3,500 - 4,500 (‡+bp*)
Opening Bid: £1,250
Worked in high-relief with hairstyle typical of the transitional period from the Consulate to the Empire; oval face with a prominent forehead, oval eyelids and clearly defined lines around the eyes; hair arranged in vertical lines combed back from the forehead; pronounced lips, typical rendering of the wide auricles; the lower part of the tunic visible with a well defined round edge around the neck; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 5.94 kg total, 22.5 cm high including stand
Acquired from Gallery Gryphos, Munich, 1992. European private collection. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11996-211878.
The head was probably pertinent to a series of funerary family portraits. It has realistic modelling of male features, which speaks of a portrait in reduced dimensions or a reference to a well-known person in the environment where it was exhibited. The portrait is worked only on the front, leaving the back, as well as the lower part of the sculpture, roughly treated. -
Roman Marble Relief Head of a Goddess
2nd-3rd century A.D.Sold for (Inc. bp): £2,340
From a colossal relief, depicting a life-size head of a goddess or an Amazon with a smooth reverse; pronounced lips and wide brow; the hair arranged in waves leaving the ears partially uncovered, secured with a taenia; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 11.9 kg total, 32 cm including stand
From an English private collection, 1970s-late 1990s. English private collection. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12163-218598
The style is akin to the sculptures of the Severan Age with a naturalistic treatment of the hair, and a more restrained use of the drill. The sculpture displays the same characteristic oval broad face with fleshy round cheeks, widely arched brow and big eyes of the portraits of Julia Domna. The alternative identification of the head as an Amazon can be deduced from the taenia and the details of the tear ducts, linked to a possible representation of a combat scene in which an Amazon suffers in agony after receiving mortal wounds.