Condition
Mended and filled; some weathering on the exterior.
Description
Bowl with vertical rim and convex, curving body tapering gradually toward the mildly convex bottom. Thick and tall conical, applied base-ring made of a length of translucent yellow glass.
The striped mosaic pattern of the vessel is formed from 16 lengths, varying in size, of two types of composite canes laid in parallel rows across the body and extending from the bottom to the rim. The canes are alternately: (1) white flanked by red and purple layers of glass and (2) white flanked by yellow layers. The rim is a twisted cane of a transparent yellowish ground and a fine opaque white thread wound spirally. The base is a translucent yellow cane.
Comments and Comparanda
Different forms of Hellenistic mosaic bowls are known, and three different kinds of mosaic (network, striped, or ribbon and composite mosaic) were used for their production (Weinberg, Gladys D. 1965. “The Glass Vessels from the Antikythera Wreck.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 55, no.3: 30–39.; Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1968. “Millefiori Glass in Classical Antiquity.” Journal of Glass Studies 10: 48–70.; Grose, David Frederick. 1989. Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50. New York: Hudson Hills Press., pp. 189–197; and more recently Lightfoot, Christopher S. 2019. “Hellenistic Glass: All That Glitters Is Not Gold.” In Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms from Pergamon to Rome, ed. Seán Hemingway and Kyriaki Karoglou, 168–176. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.). The production center of mosaic and network mosaic vessels remains unknown, although a proposed location is Alexandria, Egypt (Arveiller-Dulong, Véronique, and Marie-Dominique Nenna. 2000. Les verres antiques du Musée du Louvre 1: Contenants à parfums en verre moulé sur noyau et vaisselle moulée: VIIe siècle avant J.-C.–Ier siècle après J.-C. Paris: Somogy., p. 18, 140).
This particular bowl belongs to a group of late Hellenistic glass mosaic vessels, examples of which have been recovered from a shipwreck that sank about 80 BCE off the island of Antikythera in the Aegean, carrying a diverse cargo traveling from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy (Kaltsas, Nikolaos, Elena Vlachogianni, and Polyxeni Bouyia, eds. 2012. The Antikythera Shipwreck: The Ship, the Treasures, the Mechanism, exh. cat. Athens: National Archaeological Museum., with all previous bibliography).
There are at least three direct comparanda of ribbon bowls (with base-ring and upright rim): the first was recovered from the Antikythera shipwreck (Weinberg, Gladys D. 1965. “The Glass Vessels from the Antikythera Wreck.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 55, no.3: 30–39., pp. 34, 37, no. 7, figs. 15–16; Weinberg, Gladys D., and Murray C. McClellan. 1992. Glass Vessels in Ancient Greece: Their History Illustrated from the Collection of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Athens: Archaeological Receipt Fund., p. 108, no. 69; Avronidaki, Christina. 2012. “The Glassware.” In The Antikythera Shipwreck: The Ship, the Treasures, the Mechanism, exh. cat., ed. Nikolaos Kaltsas, Elena Vlachogianni, and Polyxeni Bouyia, 132–145. Athens: National Archaeological Museum., p. 140, no. 104), and the other three are unprovenanced (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1929.100.86: Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1968. “Millefiori Glass in Classical Antiquity.” Journal of Glass Studies 10: 48–70., pp. 55–56, fig. 8; Lightfoot, Christopher S. 2019. “Hellenistic Glass: All That Glitters Is Not Gold.” In Art of the Hellenistic Kingdoms from Pergamon to Rome, ed. Seán Hemingway and Kyriaki Karoglou, 168–176. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., p. 173, fig. 6; Yale Art Gallery 1955.6.28: Matheson, Susan B. 1980. Ancient Glass in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery., pp. 12–13, no. 38; Stern, Eva Marianne, and Birgit Schlick–Nolte. 1994. Early Glass of the Ancient World, 1600 B.C.–A.D. 50: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern: Gerd Hatje., pp. 298–299, no. 86). This same bowl shape is also formed with network and millefiori glass (Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1968. “Millefiori Glass in Classical Antiquity.” Journal of Glass Studies 10: 48–70., pp. 55–56).
Provenance
By 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his daughter, Ingrid Reisser, 1988; 1988–2004, Ingrid Reisser (Böblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004
Bibliography
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 115, no. 310.
The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 7th ed. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007., p. 79, ill.
The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection. Rev. ed. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010., p. 103.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)