A pretty Roman Glass Bowl, Roman Imperial, 100 BCE - 100 CE

A rare and elegant example of Roman cast glassware, this bowl is formed from translucent blue-green glass with a slightly bluish hue, characteristic of natron-based silica compositions used in the early Roman Imperial period. The vessel is expertly fashioned in a hemispherical shape, a form favored for both its aesthetic simplicity and functional utility. The surface is enhanced by finely executed lathe-cut grooves; two beneath the rim and one encircling the lower body, which provide subtle visual structure and reflect the high level of skill involved in its finishing. These grooves not only accentuate the bowl’s clean geometry but also attest to the sophisticated tooling methods employed by Roman glassworkers of the late Republican to early Imperial era. The glass exhibits gentle curvature and uniform wall thickness, with a rounded base that tapers slightly inward. The bowl was most likely created through a casting process followed by extensive cold working, rather than free-blown, ma