The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 22, 2026

A globular, gray ware vessel tapers to a small, flat base. Dark slip coats its burnished upper half, contrasting with the light, matte gray lower section. Three horizontal bands encircle the middle, featuring raised dots and teardrop shapes with tails trailing left. A short neck flares into a thin rim at the top. Fine, horizontal striations mark the surface, where the dark slip overlaps the lighter gray base.

Globular Pot

25–50 CE

Rhenish , Gallo-Roman, 2nd quarter 1st Century

(Cologne)
gray ware with black burnished slip and Barbotine decoration
Diameter: 21 cm (8 1/4 in.); Overall: 20.5 cm (8 1/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1992.124
Location: 103 Roman

Did You Know?

This pot’s decoration was applied using the barbotine method, in which a reed or horn is used to pipe clay slip onto the surface.

Description

This pot is decorated with a pattern of leaves arranged in two rows, separated by parallel lines of dots. The vessel was thrown on a potter’s wheel and covered in a dark slip, leaving about two inches above the foot bare. After the Romans occupied Gaul (modern day France and Belgium) in the 1st century BCE, pots like this one with dark brown or black slips became increasingly popular in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire.
  • Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1992." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (1993): 38-79. Reproduced: p. 41; Mentioned: p. 41, 65 www.jstor.org
  • Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).
    CMA 1993: "Selected Acquisitions," Bull., 80 (Feb. 1993), p. 65, no. 7, repr. p. 41
  • {{cite web|title=Globular Pot|url=false|author=|year=25–50 CE|access-date=22 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.124