Phoenician glasware from Lebanon
20 November 2018
Description

Set of glassware acquired. I have lived in Lebanon for three years and met local traders. Purchased these Phoenician era (?) glassware items from local dealers in Lebanon, mainly in the Baalbeck area where these are found during construction work. I am aware that I will probably not be able to legally sell these item to a licensed dealer in e.g. Europe (?) because they originates in Lebanon and have no certified provenance. Am also not planning to as it is not part of my personal and private collection. Still I would be interested to find out about the story of this item and items such as these and what the approximate value would be if provenance etc could be properly established.

Provenance

Acquired through small local traders in Lebanon

Acquired from
Gallery/Dealer
For sale
Maybe
Answered within about 1 hour
By Klaus
Nov 20, 19:57 UTC
Presumably not genuine

Thank you for submitting your items for appraisal. This appears to be a group of modern replica glass from Syria. You might have read that ancient glass iridescence is caused by corrosion or weathering on the surface ( the changing of colours is due to the refraction of light within layers of weathered glass). In contrast the imitated "iridescence" on the vases in your possession is simply painted on with a brush or sprayed on ( the small black dots). Such replica sell in the price range from 5 to 50 USD each. As you have already mentioned, without a provenance ancient artifacts can´t be sold, you would violate Protection of Cultural Relics laws. Replica correctly described as replica would be legal to sell, but as this group of glassware was patinated to deceive the buyer, I would consider the items forgeries of no value, unfortunately. They might represent a high sentimental value to you, but the market value would be rather low. I hope I was able to explain this complicated matter to you.

Rein dekker Nov 21, 05:36 UTC

Thanks for your comments Claus, very helpful. Will be sending more items shortly. Who knows there "might" be something genuine amongst them (-:

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