Shallow Bowl (Phiale) with Radiating Petals

Place of OriginLikely Turkey or Greece, reportedly found with a hoard of silver

DateLate 4th century BCE

DimensionsH: 4.1 cm (1 5/8 in.); Rim Diam: 17.3 cm (6 5/8 in.); Thickness: 0.3 cm (1/8 in.); Weight: 210.6 g (7.43 oz.)

MediumCast in a multipart mold, possibly by a cire perdue technique; rotary-polished on both surfaces; cut on the exterior.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1979.74

Not on View

DescriptionBroad, shallow phiale. Colorless with slight yellowish tinge. Outsplayed rim with rounded edge; short outsplayed side; distinct carination separates the side from a shallow convex bottom. On the underside at the center of the bottom, a raised circular cut disk, polished flat; radiating out from the disk, a cut pattern of thirty-two elongated petals with rounded ends, each extending upward to a pronounced horizontal groove immediately below the junction of the side and bottom. Running the length of each petal, a shallow, cut median groove.

Label TextThis shallow bowl, called a phiale, shines with the clarity of pure rock crystal, which it was made to imitate. Glass was considered as rare and precious as gold in the ancient world. The bowl was not blown, but cast in a mold and then laboriously cut, ground, and polished by a master artisan to create the thirty-two radiating petals on its underside. Such bowls were used in the Achaemenid-Greek world for important rituals, especially pouring libations (offerings of wine) to the gods. While its style originated in the Persian Empire, this example was likely crafted in a workshop in Western Asia, perhaps Ionia (modern Turkey), in the late 4th century B.C.E.Published References1979 Annual Report, Toledo Museum of Art Museum News 21, 1979, p. 78, ill.

"Recent Important Acquisitions," Journal of Glass Studies 22, 1980, p. 88, fig. 1.

"Current Exhbitions, Midwest," Archaeology 33, July-August 1980, p. 3, ill.

Grose, David F., "The Origins and Early History of Glass," in The History of Glass, eds. Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, London, 1984, p. 18, ill.

Grose, David F., "Innovation and Change in Ancient Technologies: The Anomalous Case of the Roman Glass Industry," in High-technology Ceramics, Westerville, OH, 1986, p. 67, fig. 2.

Grose, David F., Early Ancient Glass: Core-formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50, New York, Hudson Hills Press in association with the Toledo Museum of Art, 1989, cat. no. 34, p. 87, repr. (col.) p. 70.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 20, repr. (col.) p. 21.