Roman Green Glass Nursing Bottle

Decorated with stamped patterns comprising dolphins, vegetal and floral patterns, motifs with ivy leaves and floral border strips with laurel leaves. 38.5 kg, 175.5 cm



Acquired 1970s-early 1990s. Property of a North American collector. London collection, 2016. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11992-209844.

Although the majority of people were buried without coffins, there is evidence for wooden coffins, lead-framed wooden coffins, tile burials, lead coffins and stone coffins from the Roman Empire. Our typology belongs a type diffused in the Eastern Mediterranean. The leaves refer to actual garlands and flowers used to decorate tombs and altars. The dolphin was considered to ferry the souls of the dead to the afterlife and was a common motif in this period, also used for the slide-fitting of Roman sword scabbards. Romans believed these animals carried souls to the Fortunate Isles, perhaps because they could pass through the air-breathing terrestrial world and into the watery depths that claimed so many Roman sailors’ lives. This symbol would have had a personal significance for the deceased, who may have been a seafarer during life. Romans often ordered their lead coffins long before they died as the process of making them took a long time.

Comprising a matching pair of earrings, each composed of a hollow crescentic body tapering to slender coiled wire terminals, a suspension loop to each shoulder, large tear-shaped cell to front with granulated border, set with a polished garnet cabochon, gold bulbs below in the form of a bunch of grapes, adorned with smaller granules and three cells set with polished garnet cabochons; the necklace elements comprising graduated beads, alternating between roughly spherical polished garnets and sheet-gold beads of various types including gusseted, biconical and tubular, two floral filigree pendants flanking a central pendant ornamented with 'plaited' and plain filigree wire with granules to the outside, finial of trefoil bulbs, central corrugated cell set with a polished garnet cabochon; mounted on a custom-made perspex display base. 435 grams total, display stand: 30 x 23.5 cm (earrings: 38 mm each)



Ex private European collection, 1970s. with Genève Enchères, 14 December 2017, Lot 999. 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.11584-199015.

Beryls, used as small pendants, and not placed horizontally, characterised Roman necklaces of 2nd century A.D. A typical example is the necklace found in the grave of Crepereia Tryphaena. The contents of the grave are dated to the Antonine age based on the sarcophagus, the inscription, and the hairstyle of the doll it contains.

With rounded base and everted rim, base exterior decorated with a raised stylised floral motif composed of a large flower head with leaf-like petals and a second smaller flower head to centre. 189 grams, 12.5 cm wide



Acquired early 1990s. Ex private American collection; thence by descent. Private Swiss collection since 1998.