HISTORY OF GLASS-MAKIRG.

XV

on a cup found at Strasburg, which bears the name of the Emperor Maximianus(a.d. 286-310); on another in the Vereinigte Sammlungen at Munich; andon a third, in the Trivulzi Collection at Milan, where the cup is white, theinscription green, and the network blue.* Probably, however, the finest exampleis a situla, 10.} inches high, by 8 wide at the top and 4 at the bottom,preserved in the treasury of St. Mark, at Venice. This is of glass of a greenishhue; on the upper part is represented, in relief, the chase of a lion by twomen on horseback accompanied by dogs; the costume appears to be rather Byzan-tine than Roman, and the style very bad. The figures are very much undercut.The lower part has four rows of circles united to the vessel at those points alonewhere the circles touch each other. All the other examples have the lower portioncovered, in like manner, by a network of circles standing nearly £ of an inch fromthe body of the cup.

An example connected with the specimens just described, is the cup be-longing to Baron Lionel de Rothschild; though externally of an opaque greenishcolour, it is by transmitted light of a deep red, the colouring matter, Mr. Pranksobserves, being probably copper, but the glass has not been brought to the state inwhich it becomes ruby. On the outside, in very high relief, are figures of Bacchuswith vines and panthers, some portions being hollow from within, others fixed onthe exterior. The changeability of colour may remind us of the u calicesversicolores,” which Hadrian sent to Servianus. This and the preceding ought,according to the system of classification which lias been adopted, to have beennoticed with vessels owing their decoration to form and not to colour, but it seemsscarcely advisable to attempt a strictly accurate classification.

Vessels are also found on which coloured enamels have been dashed in spotsentering slightly within the surface (Vo. 238, Fig. 54); these are but common andordinary objects exhibiting little or no art, still they seem to have some bearingupon the interesting question whether enamel painting upon glass was practised bythe Romans. The above-mentioned is a coarse and imperfect sort of enamelling,though it was probably executed by means of enamel liquefied by heat and notreduced to a fine powder and applied cold, the only means by which delicateexecution could be obtained. It is, however, unlikely that when so near anapproach had been made to the art of enamelling, the last step was not takenby artists so ingenious and so desirous of novelty as were the Roman, and severalobjects are extant or have been described, which bear traces of the process. Onespecimen is in this collection, No. 84, on which is a figure of a gryphon, drawnapparently in a dark enamel colour. In the Louvre is a small cup of green trans-parent glass, about 3 inches in diameter, said to have been found at Nismes; onthis figures of animals and foliage drawn in yellow and rod are discernible. VonMinutoli (p. 16) states that Canon Glorio, at Naples, shewed him a sketch of a paterawhich was found in the year 1819, at Cuime, on which a landscape was painted in

# Engraved in Winkelmann, Storia delle Arti, i., p. 42. A fragment of a cup of this kind is inthe British Museum.