Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:37:16.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vasa Murrina again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

D. B. Harden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A reassessment of the problem of Vasa Murrina based upon a study of a fluorspar vase in A. Loewental's possession was recently published in this Journal (XXXIX, 1949, 31 ff.) by Loewental and myself. The late C. E. N. Bromehead very kindly added a ‘Mineralogical Note’, afterwards elaborated in Antiquity (XXVI, 1952, 65 ff.), supporting his view that the true Murrines were fluorspar. But even by 1952 Bromehead was unable to cite any actual fluorspar vase of Roman date whose present whereabouts is known, other than the two which Loewental and I had published. He did, however, refer to Corsi's mention (1845) of ‘two antique fluorspar vases found in Rome, one in the Museo Kircheriano… another in the possession of Signor Gillet-Laumont’. This Kircheriano specimen is also mentioned by Middleton as late as 1892. Bromehead also cites independent statements by Egglestone and Sheppard that ‘Blue John’ vases had been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum respectively.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1-2 , November 1954 , pp. 53
Copyright
Copyright © D. B. Harden 1954. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Westropp, H. M., Manual of Precious Stones and Antique Gems (London, 1874), 128Google Scholar, citing Corsi, F., Delle Pietre antiche Trattato (3rd ed., Rome, 1845Google Scholar). Most if not all of the Roman material from the Museo Kircheriano is now in the Terme Museum.

2 Middleton, J. H., Remains of Ancient Rome (London, 1892), 1, 23Google Scholar.

3 Ashmolean Museum no. 1953, 782. Ashmolean Museum Report 1953, pl. III, c. The block is reproduced here by kind permission of the Visitors.