Cleveland Museum of Art

Beaker with Scale Pattern

Date

1–100 CE

Medium

reddish ware with dark gray burnished slip

Culture

Rhenish (Cologne), Gallo-Roman, 1st Century

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The dark brown glaze on the exterior of this beaker is patchy and irregular, allowing the light red clay beneath to show through. The glaze is especially light on the ridges of the raised scales that decorate the upper body of the vessel, arranged in four offset rows. The pattern was created by applying thick clay slip to the surface of the beaker after it was removed from the potter’s wheel. Several textile fibers were found inside this beaker, suggesting that it may have contained an object or objects wrapped in cloth when it was buried.

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