This is a list of surviving ancient Roman gold glass portraits of the finer painted sort. The majority of surviving Romangold glass pieces are the cut-off bottoms of drinking glasses made with unpaintedgold leaf. These sometimes bear the names of individuals and were probably commemorative gifts on a special occasion such as a wedding anniversary or winning a contest. Achieving a good likeness was probably not an aim, and certainly not an achievement of this class of object,[citation needed] and they are not included here. The objects here belong to a smaller class of finely painted portrait miniatures, although a few seem also to have been originally placed in cups. Following a table summarizing the basic information, individual portraits are discussed in separate sections.
| Portrait | Location | Date | Size | Inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
_und_ihre_Kinder.jpg) | Museo di Santa Giulia,Brescia,Italy[1] Traditionally, but wrongly, identified asGalla Placidia withValentinian III and Honoria. See section below for full account. | 3rd or 4th century[1] | 6 cm (2.4 in) in diameter[2] | Greek:ΒΟΥΝΝΕΡΙ ΚΕΡΑΜΙ[3] (bounneri kerami, meaning uncertain; maybe "Bunneri thepotter," using an Egyptian Greek form of κεραμεύς,kerameus)[2] |
.jpg) | Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York City[4] | 250–300[4] | 4.1 cm (1.6 in) in diameter[4] | Greek:ΓΕΝΝΑΔΙ ΧΡѠΜΑΤΙ ΠΑΜΜΟΥϹΙ[5] (Gennadi chrōmati pammousi, "Gennadios, most skilled in music")[6] |
 | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City[7] | early 4th century[7] | 4.8 cm (1.9 in) in diameter[7] | no inscription |
.png) | Corning Museum of Glass,Corning, New York[8] | 3rd century[8] | 4.9 cm (1.9 in) in diameter[8] | Latin:ANATOLI GAVDIAS ("Anatolius, rejoice!")[8] |
.jpg) | Victoria and Albert Museum,London[9] | 3rd or 4th century[9] | 4.4 cm (1.7 in) in diameter[9] | no inscription |
.jpg) | British Museum, London[10] | ? | 5.1 cm (2.0 in) in diameter[10] | no inscription |
.jpg) | Archeological Museum,Bologna,Italy[11] | 1st quarter of 4th century[11] | 5.1 cm (2.0 in) in diameter[12] | Latin transcription of Greek:PIE ZESES[11][12] ("Drink and you will live")[11] |
.jpg) | Archeological Museum, Bologna, Italy[13] | 1st quarter of 4th century[13] | 4.5 cm (1.8 in) in diameter[14] | no inscription |
 | Archeological Museum, Bologna, Italy[15] | 4th century[16] | 3.5 cm (1.4 in) in diameter[15] | Latin:M. COCCEIUS ONESIMUS (probably, the name of the boy)[15] |
 | Archeological Museum,Arezzo, Italy[17] | 200–250[17] | 4.4 cm (1.7 in) in diameter[17] | no inscription |
.jpg) | Museo Sacro,Vatican Library[18] | first half of the 3rd century[18] | 4.9 cm (1.9 in) in diameter[18] | Latin:GRECO RIBIBETPROPINATVIS (perhapsGregori bibe et propina tuis,[19] "Gregory, drink and drink to thine")[18] |
_1.jpg) | Vatican Library[20] | ? | ? | no inscription |
 | Museo Sacro, Vatican Library[9] | 3rd century[21] | 4.8 cm (1.9 in) in diameter[22] | Latin:EUSEBI ANIMA DULCIS, "To sweet-souled Eusebius"[9] (?) |
.jpg) | Vatican Museums[23] | 3rd or 4th century[24] | ? | Latin:GREGORI SIMPLICI CONRECESCATES[23] (perhaps a misspelling ofcongregatus, so "Gregorius [and] Simplicius together") |
_colour.jpg) | Catacomb of San Panfilo,Rome[25] | 4th century or earlier[25] | ? | no inscription |
.jpg) | Museo Civico,Turin, Italy[26] | mid-3rd century[26] | 4.5 cm (1.8 in) in diameter[26] | no inscription |
.jpg) | Museo Civico, Turin, Italy[27] | 3rd century[27] | ? | no inscription |
_mirrored.jpg) | Vatican Museums[28] | 17th-century copy of a lost original[28] | ? | Latin: [partly illegible]CE PIE ZESES[28][29][30] (Romanisation of Greek: "Drink [and] you will live")[11] |
The portrait medallion is a part of the ornamentation of the so-called Desiderius Cross, 9th-centuryprocessionalcrux gemmata currently preserved inMuseo di Santa Giulia,Brescia,Italy.[1]
The medallion is often referred to as a portrait ofGalla Placidia and her children, but the current scholarly consensus is strongly against this 18th-century identification.[2][3]
Some 19th-century scholars, includingRaffaele Garrucci andHermann Vopel, suspected the work to be a fake.[3][31][32] The earliest mention of the medallion comes from a 17th-century inventory.[3] In 1762,Francesco Antonio Zaccaria recalled that he saw it circa 1725.[3]
Several details indicate theEgyptian, perhapsAlexandrian origin of the medallion. Both words of the inscription (ΒΟΥΝΝΕΡΙ ΚΕΡΑΜΙ) end iniota, possibly indicating theAncient Greek dialect of Egypt;ΚΕΡΑΜΙ, then, means "potter".[3] Stylistically, the painting is closely related to the 3rd-centurymummy portraits found in theFaiyum Oasis.[3] The costumes are more consistent with the contemporary fashions in Egypt than in Rome itself. In particular, the mantle worn by the middle figure is not fastened by afibula, but instead knotted; one parallel for this is a 3rd-centuryCoptictapestry medallion, now in theHermitage Museum, showing the goddessGaea with her mantle knotted in a similar way.[33] The peculiar hair style of the older woman is unknown in Roman portraiture, but can be found on some 3rd-century plaster mummy masks from Egypt.[33][34]
Howells (2015) summarizes the research into the Brescia medallion demonstrating its connection to contemporaneous Roman-Egyptian art (in particular the Fayum mummy portraits) as well as linguistic arguments supporting the authenticity of the artefact based on 18th century scholarship.[35] Jás Elsner (2007) also contends that the Brescia medallion likely depicts a family fromAlexandria, since the inscription is in the Alexandrian dialect of Greek, and provides possible dates ranging from the early-3rd to mid-5th century AD, before it found its way to Italy where it adorned a 7th-century cross.[36]
_fronte.JPG)
_Hermitage.jpg)
Gold-glass forgeries are known to have been forged all through the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1759, FrenchantiquarianAnne Claude de Caylus wrote that contemporary Roman dealers were selling gold-glass reproductions to tourists who thought them original.[39][40]Metropolitan Museum of Art has what are thought to be two 18th-century fake group portraits,[41][42] while theBritish Museum has two 19th-century ones.[43][44]
Sezione romana: vetri dorati (IV sec.d.C.)
Media related toGold-glass portraits at Wikimedia Commons.jpg)
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