This exuberant glass pavement (approximately 30 x 30 square centimeters) is a psychedelic hodgepodge of glass inlays in a variety of techniques. It’s a rare survival of the ‘opus sectile‘ (coming from Latin ‘to cut’) method entirely of glass.
Set within a greenish glass-paste matrix, a number of inquisitive birds perch and nibble, their vibrant fathers formed from irregularly cut glass pieces carefully fitted together. Most enchanting (I think) are their eyes and berries dotting the landscape: little cut discs of multi-colored rolled glass cane.
Where this one came from is not known (although it passed through the Sangiorgi collection, so perhaps circumstantially from Rome and environs). Glass pavements of this type are to have originated in Hellenistic Alexandria (like so many beautiful things…) and quickly became popular in the very fanciest households across the Mediterranean and examples are known in Rome as late as the 4th century A.D.
Relatively small panels such as this one are thought to have been set into larger surrounds of stone. Tempting, isn’t it, to speculate as to the type of grand wall (less likely floor) this zany composition once enlivened…
