Tessera

MFA Acc. #: 2002.128.1

Description

A small square or cube of a hard material. Tessera have been made of bone, wood, stone, ceramic, and glass. In ancient times, they were used a token, tally, or ticket. In Greece and Rome, tessera were used to make decorative mosaic patterns.

Synonyms and Related Terms

tesela (Esp.); tesselle (Fr.); tessera (It.); tessela (Port.)

Additional Images

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  Tesserae

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  Smalti mosaic tiles

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  Smalti mosaic tiles

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  Smalti

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  Stone tessera

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  Stone tessera samples

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  Stone tessera samples

Authority

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Dictionary of Building Preservation, Ward Bucher, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York City, 1996

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998