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Catalogue

136. Lidded Pyxis

Accession Number 2003.256
Dimensions H. 5.1, Diam. rim 5.7, Diam. base 4.1 cm; Wt. 95.92 g
Date Late first century BCE–early first century CE
Production Area Roman Empire, probably Italy
Material Translucent amber-colored and opaque white glass
Modeling Technique and Decoration Made from a polychrome disk-shaped blank assembled from fused-together lengths and sections of round mosaic canes; slumped; rotary pressed and polished; wheel-cut
View in Collection

Condition

Intact.

Description

Vertical, rounded rim, ground back to create a narrow ledge on which the lid sits. Deep cylindrical body, flat bottom.

On the upper side of the lid are two concentric cut grooves: a smaller central one, 1.3 cm, and a wider one, 3.6 cm, toward the edge. A fine, horizontal groove is cut on the body, right below the ledge of the rim.

Composite mosaic pattern formed from polygonal sections of a composite cane of amber-colored glass in which a fine, opaque white thread was spiraled. The sections were fused together and tooled into a single mass, which was slumped over a former mold and further tooled to the desired shape.

Comments and Comparanda

For the production technique, see comments on cat. 86. On the trade of small fragments of mosaic glass in nineteenth-century Rome and on the different techniques and classes of mosaic glass present in the Getty collection, see comments on cat. 95. On agate and marbled vessels, see comments on cats. 132–133. For direct comparanda, see , pp. 239, 335, no. 587.

Provenance

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

, p. 123, no. 330; p. 124, plate no. 330.

, pp. 2, 42, 48, fig. 1, fig. 27.

Exhibitions

Art of Alchemy (Los Angeles, 2016–2017)

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

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