119. Mosaic Bowl

Condition

Fully preserved; mended and filled.

Description

The bowl has a flaring lip; conical, cyma recta body; and flat bottom. It stands on a tall, splayed base-ring formed by a single revolution of an applied coil of glass.

The vessel is made of rectangular mosaic tesserae, monochrome yellow, white, and blue with a thin white layer in the middle. In addition, discoid sections have been used, composed of a central white rod set in blue, around which have been spirally wound 1.5 revolutions of a translucent yellowish ground with a thin layer of opaque yellow glass on it. The lip of the rim is a twisted cane of transparent glass around which is twisted a very fine white thread.

The coil of the base is ribbon mosaic comprising wavy but parallel layers of blue, white, and yellow glass.

Comments and Comparanda

This 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, loaded with diverse cargo traveling from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy (Kaltsas, Vlachogianni, and Bouyia 2012, with all previous bibliography). This particular shape of bowl with flaring rim is among the least represented among the late Hellenistic mosaic vessels (Oliver 1968, pp. 56–57; Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, pp. 300–301, no. 87). It was made with ribbon and mosaic-patterned glass, as was one from Tripoli, Libya Museum (Oliver 1968, pp. 56). A similar striped mosaic example in the British Museum (Tatton-Brown and Andrews 1991, p. 56, color plate 65) is said to be from one of the Greek islands. In addition, there are vessels made with millefiori mosaic (examples from the Antikythera Group: Weinberg 1965, pp. 35–36, nos. 4, 6, figs. 11, 14; Weinberg and McClellan 1992, p. 108, no. 66; Avronidaki 2012, pp. 143–144, no. 105) and network glass (Oliver 1968, p. 57, fig. 11; Lightfoot 2019, pp. 169–170, fig. 3).

Provenance

Stroganoff Collection (Rome, Italy); by 1914, Giorgio Sangiorgi, Italian, 1886–1965 (Rome, Italy); by 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his son, Gert Oppenländer, 1988; 1988–2003, Gert Oppenländer (Waiblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003

Bibliography

Sangiorgi 1914, p. 62, no. 218, plate XLI.

Noted in Oliver 1968, p. 57, no. 2.

von Saldern et al. 1974, pp. 117–118, no. 312; p. 116, plate no. 312.

Wight 2011, pp. 42, 45, fig. 24.

Exhibitions

Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)

Reflecting Antiquity: Modern Glass Inspired by Ancient Rome (Malibu, 2007–2008)

Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)