Cameo Revival Amphora with a Dancing Satyr

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Cameo Revival Amphora with a Dancing Satyr

Artist(Engraver) Attilio Spaccarelli (Italian)

Manufacturer Pauly and Company (Italian)

Place of OriginItaly, Venice

Date19th century

DimensionsH: 7 5/8 in. (19.4 cm); Diam: 2 3/4 in. (7 cm)

MediumGlass, free blown, cased and acid cut; applied handles and foot

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1923.1501

Not on View

DescriptionThis small amphora is composed of dark blue glass with opaque white relief decoration. About one-third of the body is original; the remainder is reconstructed. The neck is encircled with a frieze of ivy leaves. Two applied handles with satyr masks extend from the rim to the shoulder, which features a band of upright ovals. A male figure dancing with cymbals decorates the body. The vessel is finished with a narrow wavelike band and a circular foot.

Label TextFor fifty years, this amphora was celebrated as a rare masterpiece of 1st-century Roman cameo glass. Acquired by the museum in 1923 as a gift from founder Edward Drummond Libbey, it was considered the highlight of the renowned Thomas E. H. Curtis collection. The vase depicts a dancing satyr, a subject popular in ancient Roman art.

However, the vase is a masterful creation from a much later era. It was made in Venice, Italy, between about 1877 and 1890 by the Compagnia di Venezia e Murano, a workshop that specialized in reviving ancient glassmaking techniques. The 19th-century revival of cameo glass was a highly competitive market, and this object demonstrates the Venetian workshop’s remarkable skill.

Scholarly doubts about its ancient origins first arose in a 1957 publication by Dr. Erika Simon. This led to a comprehensive scientific analysis at the Corning Museum of Glass in 1970. The study concluded the vase was modern, based on its high lead content and acid-etched surface—neither of which are characteristic of Roman cameo glass. The analysis was complicated because the Venetian artisans had successfully recreated the authentic Roman chemical formula for the white glass, using calcium antimonate as an opacifier.

Further research in 1985 by Leonard and Juliette Rakow definitively identified the vase with the Venetian workshop, noting that this revival of ancient chemistry was a hallmark of their sophisticated work. Today, the amphora is valued not as an antiquity, but as a superb example of 19th-century historicism whose complex history reveals the crucial role of scientific analysis in museum scholarship.

Published ReferencesSturgis, Russell, “The Coleman Collection of Antique Glass,” The Century Magazine, vol. 48, 1894, p. 557 (still as fragments).

Richter, Gisela M. A. “The Curtis Collection of Ancient Glass,” Art in America, vol. 2, 1914, pp. 72–87, repr. fig. 1.

American Magazine of Art, vol. 15, no. 6, June 1924, p. 322.

“Our Roman Cameo Glass Vase,” Toledo Museum News, no. 54, September 1929, repr. on cover.

Eisen, Gustavus A. “The Provenance and Form of the Portland Vase,” Antiques, 1932, p. 223, repr. fig. 3.

Godwin, Molly Ohl. “Capolavori Italiani al ‘Toledo Museum of Art’,” Le Vie del Mondo, vol. 14, no. 11, November 1952, p. 1141, repr. p. 1139.

Simon, Erika. Die Portlandvase. Mainz, 1957, p. 80 (listed as having an antique theme, but not of antique origin).

Spaeth, Eloise. American Art Museums and Galleries. New York: Harper, 1960, p. 132.

Riefstahl, Rudolf M. “Ancient and Near Eastern Glass,” Toledo Museum News, Spring 1961, New Series, vol. 4, no. 2, repr. p. 34.

Butterfield, Roger. Ancient Rome. New York, 1964, repr. (col.) p. 33.

Bruner, Louise. “The Toledo Museum of Art,” American Artist, vol. 30, no. 4, April 1966, pp. 33–39, 71, repr. p. 38.

Spaeth, Eloise. American Art Museums. New York, 1969, rev. ed., p. 203.

Rakow, Leonard S., and Juliette K. Rakow, “Venetian Cameo Glass,” The Journal of the Glass Association, vol. 1, 1985, pp. 52, 53, 58, no. 6, addendum, pl. 1.

Exhibition HistoryCorning Museum of Glass, Corning, N.Y. 1982.