List of gold glass portraits

File:Galla Placidia (rechts) und ihre Kinder.jpg

The portrait medallion is a part of the ornamentation of the so-called Desiderius Cross, 9th-century processional crux gemmata currently preserved in Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, Italy.

The medallion is often referred to as a portrait of Galla Placidia and her children, but the current scholarly consensus is strongly against this 18th-century identification.

Some 19th-century scholars, including Raffaele Garrucci and Hermann Vopel, suspected the work to be a fake.Garrucci 1858, p. 83; pl. XL, 7Vopel 1899, no. 507 The earliest mention of the medallion comes from a 17th-century inventory. In 1762, Francesco Antonio Zaccaria recalled that he saw it circa 1725.

Several details indicate the Egyptian, perhaps Alexandrian origin of the medallion. Both words of the inscription ({{lang|grc|ΒΟΥΝΝΕΡΙ ΚΕΡΑΜΙ}}) end in iota, possibly indicating the Ancient Greek dialect of Egypt; {{lang|grc|ΚΕΡΑΜΙ}}, then, means "potter". Stylistically, the painting is closely related to the 3rd-century mummy portraits found in the Faiyum Oasis. 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 a fibula, but instead knotted; one parallel for this is a 3rd-century Coptic tapestry medallion, now in the Hermitage Museum, showing the goddess Gaea with her mantle knotted in a similar way.Breck 1927, p. 354 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.One example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/599898584 link].

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.Daniel Thomas Howells (2015). "[https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Late_Antique_Gold_Glass_online.pdf A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (PDF).]" London: the British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council). Accessed 2 October 2016, p. 7: "Other important contributions to scholarship included the publication of an extensive summary of gold glass scholarship under the entry ‘Fonds de coupes’ in Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq’s comprehensive Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie in 1923. Leclercq updated Vopel’s catalogue, recording 512 gold glasses considered to be genuine, and developed a typological series consisting of eleven iconographic subjects: biblical subjects; Christ and the saints; various legends; inscriptions; pagan deities; secular subjects; male portraits; female portraits; portraits of couples and families; animals; and Jewish symbols. In a 1926 article devoted to the brushed technique gold glass known as the Brescia medallion (Pl. 1), Fernand de Mély challenged the deeply ingrained opinion of Garrucci and Vopel that all examples of brushed technique gold glass were in fact forgeries. The following year, de Mély’s hypothesis was supported and further elaborated upon in two articles by different scholars. A case for the Brescia medallion’s authenticity was argued for, not on the basis of its iconographic and orthographic similarity with pieces from Rome (a key reason for Garrucci’s dismissal), but instead for its close similarity to the Fayoum mummy portraits from Egypt. Indeed, this comparison was given further credence by Walter Crum’s assertion that the Greek inscription on the medallion was written in the Alexandrian dialect of Egypt. De Mély noted that the medallion and its inscription had been reported as early as 1725, far too early for the idiosyncrasies of Graeco-Egyptian word endings to have been understood by forgers."

"Comparing the iconography of the Brescia medallion with other more closely dated objects from Egypt, Hayford Peirce then proposed that brushed technique medallions were produced in the early 3rd century, whilst de Mély himself advocated a more general 3rd-century date. With the authenticity of the medallion more firmly established, Joseph Breck was prepared to propose a late 3rd to early 4th century date for all of the brushed technique cobalt blue-backed portrait medallions, some of which also had Greek inscriptions in the Alexandrian dialect. Although considered genuine by the majority of scholars by this point, the unequivocal authenticity of these glasses was not fully established until 1941 when Gerhart Ladner discovered and published a photograph of one such medallion still in situ, where it remains to this day, impressed into the plaster sealing in an individual loculus in the Catacomb of Panfilo in Rome (Pl. 2). Shortly after in 1942, Morey used the phrase ‘brushed technique’ to categorize this gold glass type, the iconography being produced through a series of small incisions undertaken with a gem cutter’s precision and lending themselves to a chiaroscuro-like effect similar to that of a fine steel engraving simulating brush strokes." Jás Elsner (2007) also contends that the Brescia medallion likely depicts a family from Alexandria, 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.Jás Elsner (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World, 11-18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1-4051-2071-5}}, p. 17, Figure 1.3 on p. 18.

{{Gallery

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|height=200

|File:Croce di Desiderio (Santa Giulia, Brescia) fronte.JPG

|Desiderius cross (enlarge the image to see the medallion in the centre of the lower part of the cross)

|File:Brescia medallion - inscription.jpg

|Greek inscription, {{nowrap|{{lang|grc|ΒΟΥΝΝΕΡΙ ΚΕΡΑΜΙ}}}}

|File:Brescia medallion - middle figure.jpg

|The middle figure, mantle knotted on her breast

|File:Coptic textile with representation of Gaia-Isis in a medallion (Egypt. 4th century AD, 25 cm diam) Hermitage.jpg

|Coptic tapestry medallion showing Gaea wearing a mantle knotted on her breast. From Akhmim, 3rd or 4th century. Hermitage Museum{{cite web|title=The immortal Alexander the Great|url=http://www.hermitage.nl/en/pers/alexander_de_grote/beeldmateriaal.htm|website=Hermitage Amsterdam|accessdate=10 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222103410/http://www.hermitage.nl/en/pers/alexander_de_grote/beeldmateriaal.htm|archive-date=22 December 2015|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Воображаемый музей|url=http://vittasim.livejournal.com/55588.html|accessdate=10 December 2015}}

|File:Aelia Galla Placidia.jpg

|The right figure, with a hair style peculiar to Egypt}}

File:Ficoroni medallion.jpg

Gold-glass forgeries are known to have been forged all through the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1759, French antiquarian Anne Claude de Caylus wrote that contemporary Roman dealers were selling gold-glass reproductions to tourists who thought them original.Caylus 1759, p. 195, quote: "Ce moyen a été retrouvé à Rome, il y a très-peu d'années; j'en ai jugé par quelques morceaux très- bien traités: on s'en est servi pour tromper les Etrangers; mais celui qui possédoit ce petit secret est mort sans le publier"Breck 1927, pp. 353–354 Metropolitan Museum of Art has what are thought to be two 18th-century fake group portraits, while the British Museum has two 19th-century ones.

{{Gallery

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|File:Fake gold-glass portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.190.108).jpg

|18th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art{{cite web|title=Medallion with Family Portrait (accession number: 17.190.108)|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/463988|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=8 December 2015}}

|File:Fake gold-glass portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.190.107).jpg

|18th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art{{cite web|title=Medallion with Double Portrait (accession number: 17.190.107)|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/463987|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|accessdate=8 December 2015}}

|File:Fake gold-glass portrait (British Museum 1847,0824.2).jpg

|19th century
British Museum{{cite web|title=forgery / medallion (museum number: 1847,0824.2)|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3448813&partId=1&people=125148&peoA=125148-3-17&view=list&page=1|publisher=British Museum|accessdate=8 December 2015}}

|File:Fake gold-glass portrait (British Museum OA.10900).jpg

|19th century
British Museum{{cite web|title=forgery / medallion (museum number: OA.10900)|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3448834&partId=1|publisher=British Museum|accessdate=8 December 2015}}

}}

• Gold glass
• Roman portraiture
• Fayum mummy portraits

{{Reflist|20em}}

• {{cite journal|author1=Joseph Breck|author-link=Joseph Breck (curator)|title=The Ficoroni Medallion and Some Other Gilded Glasses in the Metropolitan Museum of Art|journal=The Art Bulletin|date=1927|volume=9|issue=4|pages=352–356|doi=10.2307/3046553|jstor=3046553}}
• {{cite book|author1=Anne Claude de Caylus|author-link=Anne Claude de Caylus|title=Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques et romaines|date=1795|publisher=Desant & Saillant|volume=III}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=rC8CAAAAYAAJ google books preview]
• Pericle Ducati{{sup|(it)}} (1929). [http://www.inasa-roma.it/pdf/P_DUCATI_I_vetri_dorati_romani_nel_Museo_Civico_di_Bologna.pdf I vetri dorati romani nel Museo Civico di Bologna].
• Elsner, Jás (2007). "The Changing Nature of Roman Art and the Art Historical Problem of Style," in Eva R. Hoffman (ed), Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Medieval World, 11–18. Oxford, Malden & Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. {{ISBN|978-1-4051-2071-5}}.
• {{cite book|author1=Helen C. Evans|author2=Melanie Holcomb|author3=Robert Hallman|title=The Arts of Byzantium|date=2001|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York City|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Arts_of_Byzantium_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_58_no_4_Spring_2001}}
• {{cite book|author1=Raffaele Garrucci|author-link=Raffaele Garrucci|title=Vetri ornati di figure in oro: trovati nei cimiteri dei cristiani primitivi di Roma|url=https://archive.org/details/gri_33125012771628|date=1858|publisher=Tipografia Salviucci}} [https://archive.org/details/gri_33125012771628 Internet Archive preview]
• Howells, Daniel Thomas (2010). [http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/6351/1/Howells,_Daniel_Thomas.pdf Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum], PhD Thesis.
• Howells, Daniel Thomas (2015). "[https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Late_Antique_Gold_Glass_online.pdf A Catalogue of the Late Antique Gold Glass in the British Museum (PDF).]" London: the British Museum (Arts and Humanities Research Council). Accessed 2 October 2016.
• {{cite book|author1=Kenneth Lapatin|title=Luxus: The Sumptuous Arts of Greece and Rome|date=2015|publisher=Getty Publications|isbn=9781606064221}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=n5T1CAAAQBAJ google books preview]
• {{cite journal|author1=Claudia Lega|title=Il corredo epigrafico dei vetri dorati: novità e considerazioni|journal=Sylloge Epigraphica Barcinonensis|date=2012|volume=10|pages=263–286|url=http://www.raco.cat/index.php/SEBarc/article/view/263971/351470}}
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (1982). [http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/The_Vatican_Collections_The_Papacy_and_Art The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art]. {{ISBN|0-87099-321-6}}.
• {{cite journal|author1=Elena Vaiani|title="Clues to the ancient world": le piccole antichità nel Museo Cartaceo, con una verifica sulla collezione di Flavio Chigi|journal=Studi di Memofonte|date=2014|url=http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/XII_2014_VAIANI.pdf|accessdate=8 December 2015}}
• {{cite book|author1=Hermann Vopel|title=Die altchristlichen Goldgläser|date=1899|publisher=J. C. B. Mohr |url=https://archive.org/details/diealtchristlic00vopegoog|accessdate=10 December 2015}}
• {{cite book|title=Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century|editor=Kurt Weitzmann|editor-link=Kurt Weitzmann|date=1979|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York|isbn=9780870991790|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/Age_of_Spirituality_Late_Antique_and_Early_Christian_Art_Third_to_Seventh_Century}}
• {{cite journal|author1=David Whitehouse|author-link=David Whitehouse|title=Glass, Gold, and Gold-Glasses|journal=Expedition|date=1996|volume=38|issue=2|pages=4–12|url=http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/glass-gold-and-gold-glasses/}}

• {{Commons category-inline|Gold-glass portraits}}

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