This is no where more evident than in glass cameo work. When cooled, the exterior surface was cut back to produce figural compositions on multiple planes which exploited the shading variations made possible depending upon the degree of thickness or thinness of the reserved white. Cameo glass had an advantage over cameo carving in shell or stone in that the artisan could control the placement and relative depth of the contrasting materials in his blank. Only thirteen complete cameo vessels are presently known worldwide. Preserved fragments number only in the hundreds.
Dionysiac scenes seem to have been the favored subject matter for cameo vessels.
These goblets were probably cameo-carved. The preciousness of cameo vessels is suggested by a still life painting from Herculaneum in which a cameo-carved jug bearing a scene with a horse and rider figures prominently. Mythological scenes were also engraved into colorless glass vessels. A.D. Fragmentary examples of this ware from Karanis prove that such glasses must have been made in Egypt, no doubt at Alexandria, for the inhabitants of provincial Karanis were not likely to import luxury items from Rome, Cologne, or Sidon. Completely preserved vessels of this type found in the West document complex captioned figural scenes.