WONDROUS GLASS

REFLECTIONS ON THE WORLD OF ROME

c. 50 B.C. - A.D. 650


Table of Contents



Acknowledgements

The exhibition which this display documents was a long time in the planning. Many people helped with the work involved. In 1979-80, a group of graduate students in the Department of the History of Art and the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology participated in an introductory study unit with me -- a learning experience which did much to bring ideas for the exhibition into focus. The members of this group were Mary Ann Eaverly, Julia Eisendrath, Lauren Arnold, Nick Stavrinides, and Ann van Rosevelt. Julia Eisendrath continued on to devote much time and thought to a meticulous inventory of the glass collections in the Museum. This was a laborious project, essential to the efficient production of the exhibition.

Two graduate students arrived fresh on the scene in 1981-82: Victoria Weston (History of Art and Japanese Studies) and Laurie McCoy (Classical Art and Archaeology). I am most grateful to them for their cheerful industriousness through a long winter of snowy forays to the Graduate Library. Laurie McCoy saw the project through to its completion, collaborating with me on research. In addition, Prof. John D'Arms, Ms. Norma Jenkins (Research Librarian at the Corning Museum of Glass), Dr. Aileen Gatten, and Prof. Charles Witke have provided indispensable help on specific scholarly problems -- from the topography of Puteoli, to Sino-Roman relations in antiquity and obscure Chinese rhapsodists, to vexing questions of mirrors and metaphors, Isidorus, and Alexander's glass submarine.

I should like to thank Paul Cunningham for assistance with the grant proposal for the exhibition; and the National Endowment for the Arts (a Federal Agency) and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts of The University of Michigan for their support of the project. Special thanks go to Ginny and Cruse Moss, to the Department of Antiquities of Jerusalem, to The Corning Museum of Glass (especially Sidney M. Goldstein), and to The Toledo Museum of Art (especially Kurt Luckner) for their generous cooperation as lenders of objects for the exhibition.

[These items are not illustrated in this Internet "installation." For a wide variety of illustrations and a fuller discussion please refer to the original cataloque of the exhibition.]

As always, the staff at University Publications Office and the staff and volunteers at the Museum have made a tremendous effort to assist with every aspect of Wondrous Glass. Individually, they are: Carol Hellman and Carol Ann Taylor, editor and designer of the catalogue, respectively; Ken Pokorny, photographer of this very difficult material; Amy Rosenberg, assisted by Susanna Pauli, in the painstaking conservation and cleaning of the objects; Lisa Vihos and Rachel Vargas for typing and many related jobs; Pamela Reister, as registrar in charge of the myriad tasks attendant upon a loan exhibition; Diane Brown, for her administration of accounts, her work on publicity, her expert typing, and her responsible, happy efficiency on all conceivable matters; and finally, David Slee -- the designer and technician who has turned ideas into visible realities through a chain of encounters with wood, plexiglass, and light.

Margaret Cool Root
Assistant Curator of Collections
1982


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