A Roman Enameled Bronze Pyxis, Gaul or the Rhineland, 3rd Century A.D.

of hexagonal form with one extant and two fragmentary equidistant attachment rings in the corners, lathe-turned ridges and grooves within an engraved circle underneath, each side ornamented with an identical pattern in millefiori glass, the central horizontal rectangle decorated with two rows of red and blue checkerboards on a white ground, the pair of vertical rectangles above and below each with a veined black pattern on a green ground, the borders on each side with alternating red and mostly fragmentary blue squares, three concentric circles around the missing lid enameled respectively with black or green, white and blue checkerboards on a red ground, and mostly fragmentary white and blue checkerboards on a white ground alternating with blue squares.

Mathias Komor, New York
Melba Davis Whatley, Dallas and Grosse Pointe

“Ancient and Medieval Art from a Dallas Private Collection,” Dallas Museum of Art, 1981

Cf. Wealth of the Ancient World, cat. no. 53, pl. p. 19 (Sotheby's, Hunt Collection, no. 53). The author mentions three other nearly complete examples of this type of pyxis; they are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (W.H. Forsyth, “Provincial Roman Enamels Recently Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum,” Art Bulletin, vol. 32, 1950, pp. 297-300, fig. 1,4, and Romans & Barbarians, no. 100), Cologne (Römer am Rhein, Römisch-germanische Museum, Cologne, 1967, p. 237, no. C169), and St. Germain-en-Laye (N. Thierry, “À propos d’une nouvelle pyxide d’époque romaine à décor d’émail millefiori,” Antike Kunst, vol. 5, 1962, pp. 65ff.). Also see Christie's, London, July 10th, 1991, no. 129, found in North West Essex.