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Rare millefiori Bracelet, Circa 1st century AD, 

In the 1st century AD, when glass production and trade had spread around the Mediterranean, Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, brought skilled glassworker slaves from Judaea, Syria, and Egypt to the Empire.

These master craftsmen not only carved gem-like glass cameos and created Hellenistic-style pieces through traditional techniques like core-and-rod, slumping, and casting. 

They also introduced the revolutionary art of free-blowing glass. Inflating gobs of molten glass with blowpipes, then working them while controlling their temperatures, produced smooth, thin-walled, bubble-like creations. This dynamic, minute-to-minute method inspired a variety of innovative shapes and styles.

Romans appreciated glass not only for its practicality, but also for its beauty. Vases, for instance, might be marbled, swirled or, through the addition of mineral additives, replicate semi-precious stones. 

Bottles and pitchers might be smooth, textured, lathe-cut, or ornamented with delicate frilled glass trailings. Bowls might be ribbed, rimmed, molded, or fashioned from “millefiori” (thousand flowers) discs.

These mosaic-like pieces, created by patterning glass threads in hollow glass rods, then stretching, slicing, and fusing them together, also enhance plaques, rings, beads, bracelets, and brooches. These ancient pieces were so attractive, in fact, that master glassmakers in Murano, Italy, have recently revived the complex technique.

Mainly cerulean blue, with red, navy blue, and yellow inclusions, 

3″ W x ¾” H,

Image courtesy Artemis Gallery and LiveAuctioneers