Likely once part of a vase, this fragment was created using a cameo technique in which a colored glass ground is dipped into fluid opaque glass. The decoration was made by cutting away the opaque white glass to reveal its colored background. The embracing figures exude an erotic charge, and possibly represent the mythological couple Ariadne and Dionysos.
Provenance
- Fahim Kouchakji (1886–1976), New York; collection of Charles B. Hoyt (1889–1949), Cambridge, Massachusetts; purchased from Hoyt by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC, November 1946.
Selected Bibliography
- G. M. A. Richter, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Cambridge, MA, 1956), 65, no. 45, plate 18C.
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