The history of juggling in Egyptian gardens 1988

Since the 1980s, American glass artist Ginny Ruffner has pioneered the ‘lampworking’ (or ‘flameworking’) technique, in which a torch or lamp is used to melt and shape glass. In this colourful work, Ruffner depicts an ancient Egyptian man juggling patterned balls against a pyramid, marrying the inception and cultural application of glasswork in ancient Egypt with the history of juggling. (The earliest known depiction of juggling appears on a tomb in the ancient Egyptian Beni Hasan cemetery complex.) It is this circus act’s whimsical sense of spectacle and play that the artist seeks to capture in her quirky, wonderous glasswork.