Ennion, one of the greatest glass artisans of all times, is believed to have worked in a major glassmaking center in the 1st century CE.

How does that relate to us in this century?!

You have the incredible opportunity to see Master Glass Artist Ennion’s work through January 28, 2012 at The Israel Museum!

Made by Ennion: Ancient Glass Treasures

The Israel Museum presents an exceptional group of ancient mold-blown glass vessels, many of them made by Ennion, a master glassworker who was the first to put his name on his art. Ancient glass bearing the name of the artist is exceedingly rare, and never before have so many examples been gathered in a single display.

Nine of the 43 pieces are signed, including a number of pieces that rank among the highest achievements in glassworking of all time. Approximately half of the works are on loan from the extraordinary collection of Shlomo Moussaieff and are exhibited to the public for the first time.

The invention of the glassblowing technique around the 1st century BCE was a revolutionary event in glass making history.

The most famous ancient glass blower, Ennion specialized in a wide variety of fine mold-blown tablewares.

This rare glass jug (only three like it are known in the world!) was discovered in a niche of the eastern wall of the Fresco Room in the ‘Palatial Mansion’ excavated in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, an affluent district in the Second Temple period.

The Palatial Mansion, as noted in A Thousand Years of History in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter by Nitza Rosovsky, is a showcase for Herodian building techniques and interior decoration, and might have been the house of the high priest. Several of the most luxurious items found in the Jewish Quarter came from this mansion.

The jug bears the name of its maker, Ennion, with his name in Greek. Following the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, the jug was broken and distorted in the conflagration that swept Jerusalem in September of 70 CE.

Jug detail.

This glass cup, found in a tomb in Cyprus, is signed by Ennion.

The British Museum states that the cup was blown in a decorated mould that produced flutes on the lower half, and above Greek inscriptions with palmettes, concentric circles, and columns with a star between. “ENNIONEPOIEI“. The inscription translates as: ‘Ennion made me‘. The other inscription found on Ennion’s vessel translates as ‘let the buyer be remembered‘. The inscription ‘let the buyer be remembered’ was a traditional Semitic blessing and would only have been meaningful for someone of Semitic origin. It does not occur on Ennion’s jugs or amphoras or six-sided bottles, but only and almost always on his drinking cups.

It is believed that Ennion’s home was in Sidon, as two of his signed pieces come from there, though more have been found in Jerusalem. Ennion’s name is a Greek version of a Semitic name; Ennion is not common in Greek. His artwork is signed in Greek which was the language of the eastern Mediterranean. Ennion may have been Jewish or Phoenician, and his style and technique are called “Sidonian“. All but 2 of 13 drinking cups bearing Ennion’s signature were found in Italy, so it’s been long believed that he migrated to Italy at some point in his career. But recent finds of Ennion cups in Greece, Spain, Morocco, France and perhaps Germany and the Netherlands suggest that it was not Ennion who moved, but there was a mass exchange of molds in antiquity. Sidon had extensive trade connections and this could explain the wide distribution of Ennion’s vessels throughout the Roman empire. The concentration of finds in Jerusalem suggests that his workshop was in the Syro-Palestinian area.

Transparent Mold-Blown Glass by Ennion, courtesy of The Israel Museum.

The Getty offers the following, “Ennion created the ground-breaking technique of blowing glass vessels into molds. This new process allowed the vessel and its decoration to be created at the same time and permitted the creation of multiple copies of the same vessel. Ennion’s clear, precise designs distinguish his work; he also minimized the visibility of the lines caused by the seams in the mold.”

A true artist, Ennion designed and decorated in the contemporary fashion, and designed especially for execution in glass. His vessels are distinguished by the fine detail and precision of their relief decoration that imitates designs found on contemporary silver tableware. Scholars have suggested that Ennion trained as a silversmith and adapted the skills of embossing and chasing metal to the making of glass molds.

Ennion was a perfectionist, as evidenced by the great care he took to conceal the joints between mold sections by integrating them in the decorative design. He also made handles on cups in a unique manner, applying a handle near the rim and pulling it down, folding the lower end in and pressing it against the wall of the cup, rather than the common manner of pulling it up toward the rim.

Ennion’s clarity and precision in creating mold-blown vessels, and the quality and popularity of this gifted artist’s molds and vessels is so exceptional that it likely explains why his artwork bears his signature so prominently.

With appreciation to Roman mold-blown glass: the first through sixth centuries by E.M. Stern; The Israel Museum; The Getty; The British Museum; Corning Museum of Glass; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.