Wunder Jesu auf ausgewählten (römischen) Zwischengoldgläsern

The Romans used "Zwischengoldgläser", a very special type of glass in which images were rendered in gold or gold foil sandwiched between layers of glass, for representations of particular importance such as the miracles of Jesus. Because of the gold, production in this medium was extremely complicated and costly, and it was carried out almost exclusively in Rome, where works in "gold glass" were termed noble tableware. More than 800 examples are known today. After regular use, gold glass vessels found their way into or onto graves, where they were used a second, perhaps commemorative, time. Their dating is very difficult owing to a lack information about the contexts of their discovery, but it is usually placed in the fourth century ce. Of the numerous renderings of the miracles of Jesus, only five were fashioned in Roman gold glass. Several depictions of Christ with the wand can be found on these objects, each of which probably supported supplementary, second depictions of biblical figures. Some of these also appear in Old and New Testament pictorial cycles, where they can only be explained by the phenomenon of so-called "typology".