Fig. 624. Fig. 625.
Antonini Pii.
Fig. 626. Fig. 627.
Faustina the younger.
CHAPTER XVI.
GLASS.
Vessels with painted figures—Vessels with Greek letters—Drinking-horns of glass—Cut glass.
Nothing perhaps can give us a better idea of the refined taste of some of the Northmen than the beautiful glass objects which have been found in different parts of the country. Many of these are evidently of Greek, some perhaps of Roman, origin. In the museums of Italy, Greece, or Russia no such exquisite bowls are found, which after having been painted they seem to have been baked or subjected to heat in order that they might retain their colour.
Fig. 628.—2½ inches high; diameter across top, 3 inches; across bottom, 17
10ths of an inch. A blue panther, with grey or brown contours and dots, attacks a brown stag; on the other side of which is a brown lioness. Between the animals are circles of dots, brown and yellow by turns, with a brown spot in their middle.
Fig. 629.—3½ inches high; 39
10th inches diameter. A brown bull, with a blue band with brown dots, attacks a brown bear. To the left a man in yellow coat and green breeches, holding a whip in one hand, in the other a blue shield; to the right a stag, being torn by a lion, both brown.
These two vessels were found in a field, Nordrup, Zeeland, in a grave 3 feet 4 inches under the ground. It contained a skeleton, and, besides the two vessels, a Roman bronze vessel and bronze sieve, a gold finger-ring, a silver fibula, forty-one beads of glass and glass mosaic, a clay vessel, and fragments of two clay vessels.