This restoration was generously sponsored by Greg and Irene Haas.

This small glass piece in the shape of a bird, most likely a dove, was made with two layers of white opaque glass forming a body and purple with white stripes for the wing and eye. It was discovered in the cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way without its beak or legs. The piece was probably part of a beautiful composition adorning a house of the Roman elite prior to being inserted into the tomb as decoration. The rooms of villas were often decorated with splendid mosaics in glass depicting birds in a garden full of flowers, a well-known theme since the end of the first century BC.

Decorated glasses, plates and floors were found in the villa of Emperor Lucius Verus (third quarter of the second century AD) in Acquatraversa. Decorations in the shape of fish are also documented as appearing in a circular medallion of glass inserted into a wooden panel, which belonged to the decoration of a door from a Roman building in Corinth, which was destroyed in the mid-third century AD.

Restoration Process Included:

• Cleaning and consolidation of the surface
• Analysis of the glass and color composition
• Consolidation of the fractures and fissures where needed
• Final protection of the surface
• Photographic documentation