Fragment of an Inlaly Depicting a Bird
Ptolemaic Period (305–30 BCE)
Medium
Glass, mosaic technique
Dimensions
1.4 × 1.2 × 0.3 cm (9/16 × 1/2 × 1/8 in.)
Classification
glass
Department
Arts of Africa
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
67884
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In ancient Rome, there was a high demand for colorful glass that could dazzle banquet guests alongside the expensive silver and gold serving wares meant to impress. Fragments like this one would have once been a part of larger mosaic dishes. The mosaic pattern was made by sagging molten glass into bowl-shaped molds, a technique used on many of these fragments is similar to millefiori, “thousand flowers” in Italian, a modern glass-making method in which tiny rods of colored glass are bundled toge...
About the Artist
Ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egyptian artists, a collective of highly skilled artisans spanning over three millennia from the Predynastic period (c. 6000–3150 BC) to the Roman era (30 BC–4th century AD), produced some of humanity's most enduring masterpieces. These anonymous craftsmen, often organized in state-sponsored workshops, lived in dedicated communities like Deir el-Medina near Luxor during the New Kingdom (c....