Lot 240. A Roman amber glass cup signed by Ennion, circa first half of the 1st century A.D. Estimate £200,000 – £300,000 ($266,000 - $399,000). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

Blown in a three-part mould, two vertical sections for the sides and one for the lower body and base, the sides decorated with an animal frieze consisting of four pairs of confronting animals either side of a vertical palmette with out-turned leaves, a bull and a lion, two cockerels, a hare and a dog and two birds, perhaps crows, between two of the palmettes, above the backs of the lion and a bird a tabula ansata with double-line Greek inscription reading ENNIWN/EΠOIHCEN, "Ennion made me", a band of raised dots under the rim, the lower body with vertical tongues, the base with three concentric circles and a central dot, the rim modern; 3 1/8 in. (8 cm.) diam.; 2 ½ in. (6.4 cm.) high

Provenance: Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 10 December 1931, lot 64. 
Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877-1951) collection. 
Dr D. T. Hart collection, gifted from the above. 
The Property of Dr D. T. Hart; Sotheby's, London, 8 December 1994, lot 31. 

Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.

GLASS BY ENNION

Mould-blown glasses bearing the tabula ansata with the glassmaker Ennion’s name are among the most sought after pieces of ancient glass because of their high quality of design and execution. Indeed Ennion was recently the subject of a solo show in both the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (Made by Ennion: Ancient Glass Treasures from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, May-December 2011) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, 9 December 2014-13 April 2015), in which the following three signed Ennion pieces, and a fourth Ennion-inspired piece, from the Moussaieff Collection were included. 

It is believed that the origin of blowing glass occurred in the last half of the 1st Century B.C., and that of blowing into a multi-part mould with decoration on the interior came some 50 years later, probably originating somewhere along the Syro-Palestinian coast before spreading around the Mediterranean. Ennion was one of the earliest practitioners of the technique and, without question, the best. Examples of his fine mould-blown tablewares, including jugs, amphorae, hexagonal bottles, bowls and handled cups have been discovered around the Mediterranean in datable contexts from the late Tiberian to early Claudian period, when they were produced, but continued to be used right up in to the late Neronian and early Flavian periods.

The questions, however, still remain as to who Ennion was and what role he played in the workshop. The tabula ansata that appears on all his pieces is inscribed in Greek, but Ennion is not a common Greek name and is more likely to be a Hellenised Semitic name. Nor did he add a toponymical name to his title as his contemporary, Aristeas the Cypriote, did.

While it was common practice in antiquity for artisans to add discrete signatures to their work, the prominent position of the tabula ansata on the glass vessels signed by Ennion would suggest that he fulfilled a more prominent role, possibly as owner of, and mould-maker in, a small but highly successful and noted workshop.

Exhibited: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Made by Ennion: Ancient Glass Treasures from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, May-December 2011.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, 9 December 2014-13 April 2015.

PUBLISHED: D. P. Barag, 'Phoenicia and Mould-Blowing in the Early Roman Period', Annales du 13e Congrès de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire de Verre, Pays Bas, 28 août-1 septembre 1995, Lochem, 1996, pp. 81-82, figs 2-5.
Y. Israeli, Made by Ennion: Ancient Glass Treasures from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, exhibition cat. (Israel Museum), Jerusalem, 2011, p. 35.
C. S. Lightfoot, Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, exhibition cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York, 2014, p. 110.

Notes: This cup is unique, as it is the only signed piece by Ennion to feature animals and birds as its decoration. The present condition of the cup makes identification of these animals difficult. In Yael Israeli's 2011 publication the animals were described as an ox and a lion, two birds, a dog and a rabbit, and two cockerels, but in Christopher Lightfoot's 2014 publication they were identified as "a cock and a dog, a sheep and a bull, and a cat and a peafowl (a duck?)". Similar animals do occur on some bottles from the “Workshop of the Floating Handles", for example on two small jugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 17.194.249 and 17.120.243; Lightfoot, 2014, pp. 132-5, nos. 38-9). This workshop is thought to be closely related to that of Ennion’s as there are similarities in decorative motifs, lines of dots, and in the way that that the handles of the cups are applied at the rim. 

This bowl was probably originally a kantharos with two now-missing handles, the lower attachments for which are indicated by two A-shaped scars on opposing sides on the horizontal lines below the frieze.

Christie's. ANCIENT GLASS FROM THE SHLOMO MOUSSAIEFF COLLECTION, 6 July 2016, London, King Street