‘Sandwich glass’ always strikes me as a slightly hilarious way to describe the most luxurious and refined type of ancient glass.
But it’s actually a great description of a hugely sophisticated technique that was perfected in the Hellenistic period. Shallow and cups, seem to have especially sought after but only available to the fabulously wealthy. The manufacture of a single vase meant casting (not blowing, mind you) two separate vases in translucent glass, precisely measured to nestle one inside the other with walls all but touching. Delicate gold foil cut into a shapes (vegetal, ornamental, and sometimes figural) was sandwiched between the two vases, which were then fused together fixing the gold in place. There was no room for error at any stage.
This little beauty is, of course, not a vase but rather the bezel of a glass ring made in the sandwich technique, slightly predating the full-blown (pun intended) vases of the Hellenistic period. The loop of the ring has broken off, and what remains is mesmerizing. A small winged figure (perhaps a nude Eros carrying a torch in one hand and conch in the other? Other suggestions welcome…perhaps Hypnos?) is preserved within the clear glass, like a primordial insect trapped in amber.
