Roman glass rod
Price: on request
Sold
Object number
AR3319
| Object: |
Roman glass rod
|
| Material: |
Clear green glass with applied thread made of opaque white glass.
|
| Period: |
1st cent. AD to 2nd cent. AD. Roman Imperial Period. |
| Description: |
Long glass rod. One end is looped into a ring. The other end is flattened to a plate-shaped finial. A decorative spiral of white glass thread runs along the entire length. The rod had a function as a so-called distaff. This tool must have been very popular in Roman times, there were numerous design variants made of either bone, bronze, silver or glass. A specimen made of glass, the most fragile and therefore most perishable of these materials, is rare in this condition. The distaff was probably made in the eastern Mediterranean region, where large centres of Roman glass production were located. |
| Background: |
The distaff, also known as a rock, is a spinning aid. The wool was put on the stick, so a woolen thread could be easily pulled for spinning. A finger was hooked into the distaff ring. Together with a hand spindle the set for spinning a thread is complete. The Roman poet Ovid has a slave woman write about her experience: "I’ll be a humble servant spinning out the day’s work and thinning the full distaff into my threads. I beg you not to let your wife scold me too much, not knowing if she will be at all kind to me, nor suffer my hair to be pulled out in your presence [...]" (Ovid, Letters of Heroines 3,75-80). In practice, spinning was evidently not that easy. Some employers made sure of that. |
| Dimensions: |
19.6cm length.
|
| Condition: |
Tiny repaired crack on the ring. Otherwise perfect condition including the fine spiral threading. An absolutely rare condition for glass rods of this type.
|
| Provenance: |
Acquired by us in 2022 on the German art market. Previously in the German family collection K. J. Mueller. Acquired between 1950 and 1977, presumably from the art market.
|
| References: |
Cf. D. Whitehouse, Roman Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, Volume Three, pp. 52, no. 972. Cf. K. Roth-Rubi und H. R. Sennhauser, Verenamünster Zurzach, Ausgrabungen und Bauuntersuchung 1 (Zurich, 1987), p. 129, fig. 111g. |
| Authenticity: |
We unconditionally guarantee the authenticity of every artefact, all items are subject to our lifetime return policy on authenticity.
|