 So now we're going to talk about a slightly later use of rock crystal. We're moving from the ancient Near East into the period of the Roman Empire and we're going to be looking at a Venus made out of rock crystal and also first at a couple of other figures. But what I want to do with this slide is just remind you of some of those associations with rock crystal. As you'll recall, Aristotle and Pliny both believed that rock crystal was an incredibly pure form of ice, one that was formed from celestial waters. And so we have a number of associations then with rock crystal. We have this association with water. We have an appreciation of its clarity and we know that the Romans really loved to have drinking vessels, very expensive drinking vessels made out of rock crystal because they really loved the way that it changed color when it was filled with something like wine. So a clear rock crystal vessel could be filled with red wine and suddenly look like grapes. And we know that both in glass and crystal they would make vessels shaped like bunches of grapes. For example, in order to enjoy exactly this effect. Well, now we're going to see that type of effect, but with works depicting the human form. Here I have a couple of male examples. These are two fragments showing male bodies. The one on the left is in the British Museum in London. The one on the right is in the Louvre. And you can see that it's been placed into a much later mount, probably medieval or Renaissance. And what I want you to notice about these, and particularly in the example on the left, is that when you pick up an object of rock crystal, it takes on the color of whatever is holding it. So here I'm holding that it's a male torso that is nude from the waist up. It's wearing kind of a garment slung over one shoulder, a garment called a hymation. But the entire thing, the flesh and the clothing and everything, takes on the blue of the protective glove I'm wearing when I examined it in the British Museum in London. And similarly, in the example on the right that is in the Louvre, you can see the color of that back wall in the gallery reflected at us through this figure. There's something about that that is very, very compelling because you can have something simply displayed on a shelf in kind of a neutral tone. But the moment you engage with it, suddenly there's this intimacy as it takes on the color of your skin. Here's the object of our case study. This is a small, crouching Venus figure that is now in the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. She's about six inches high. And as you can see, she's missing her arms. Portions of her legs and of course her head. But you can still recognize the pose. And this is a particular pose that was famously shown for a lot of different Venus figures. In the Roman world, they loved to copy really famous works of Greek sculpture. And so there was a famous Greek original showing Venus sort of crouching like this. And numerous Roman copies were made to satisfy the demand for art in the Roman world. Here we have a particularly small example. Most of the examples that you'll see in museums are life size. And there are very famous examples of them, one of them in the British Museum in London, for example. Here we have a figure that is meant to be put on a shelf, probably, or in a display area and then picked up and shared. And I kind of imagine a male patron for something like this, because as we'll see, the rock crystal makes this highly erotic. Here are a couple of views of the back of this figure. And you can see a portion of the Venus's elaborate hairstyle kind of hanging down in back. And you can see her full form what I want you to also notice is that here, just looking at it in a museum's storeroom at the Getty Villa, that she appears very sort of cool and unapproachable. She has that celestial icy quality that we associate with rock crystal and that Pliny and Aristotle describe. I'm going to show you some video that I shot at the Getty Villa. It's going to start with some captions in a moment. And I just want to read you. I want you to read those. And we'll show you the Venus against colored scarves in some video clips coming up. I want you to notice the hair here. We were all very interested to notice her elaborate hairstyle because when this Venus is inside of a display case, it's the kind of display case that doesn't allow you to see her from all sides. So what you're getting here is a really kind of unusual and privileged look at this object. This is the hand of Mary Louise Hart, a curator at the Getty Museum. You're going to see her in some interviews having to do with garnets later in the class. But here she's providing the service of just rotating the Venus so that you guys can see her. So now we're going to be looking at that same rock crystal Venus against a couple of silk scarves that I brought out with me to California when I examined her. And what I want you to notice is how the color of her body changes as it reflects and reveals that color that is placed just behind her. It's particularly dramatic with this scarf in a cool color and that I'm also going to use a warm colored scarf in our next video clip. And what I particularly want you to think about is what it would be like for a patron to hold this object in his hands and to see this Venus take on the color of the flesh of his or her hands. And I'm saying he because I'm assuming that the patron of this work, the person who paid for it, would have been a male. This is the goddess of love and beauty, the goddess of sexuality. And there seems to be an extra erotic aspect to the fact that not only is she nude, but you can see through her. What was really interesting when we did this experiment with the scarves, because, of course, I wasn't allowed to pick up this valuable fragile object in my hands and just hold her like that. But when we did this experiment with my colored silk scarves, we were surprised at the differences in effect that you get from warm colors versus cool colors. So here we've got mostly oranges and reds in this particular scarf. And she's taking on a warmer, more fleshly appearance. And you might recall that picture that I had of the one male figure, the Roman figure, with my sort of purplish blue rubber glove holding it up. And that color just completely dominated in that rock crystal figure. I can, I think that this would have been something that would have been a highly prized luxury object, something that a man would probably show to other men. You know, perhaps this is a little bit akin to the playboy or a pin-up in the Roman era, but it's definitely meant to be handled and appreciated with color as part of that. Before I finish this topic, I just want to mention that these examples we see here are probably the tip of the iceberg for a whole class of objects that are likely now lost. And rock crystal, unfortunately, because of its brittleness is something that could be damaged and destroyed quite easily. And very, very precious objects like these, we know were destroyed. We have records, for example, from the Islamic world of thousands of pieces of rock crystal just in royal treasuries. And there are something like fewer than 300 still surviving today. So that should give you an idea of the kind of material that these works could represent. In addition to the pieces you're seeing here, I also saw an almost life-size hand made of rock crystal about the size of my 10-year-old son's hand. And that would have belonged to a sculpture, a statue probably made of multiple materials. So the flesh areas, the hands, the face, maybe if it were a full-length body, the feet would have been made out of rock crystal. And then the rest could have been made out of gold or silver or some other precious substance. So it's really also tantalizing to imagine what greater body of work, pieces like this and our rock crystal fetus represent.