146. Gold-Band Flask

Condition

Fully preserved; small part of body is missing. Interior covered with whitish weathering.

Description

Flaring, almost horizontal rim; short, cylindrical neck; narrow, sloping shoulder; biconical carinated body; flat bottom.

Two parallel horizontal grooves at the transition from the shoulder to the upper end of the body, one on the greatest diameter of the body, and two more at the transition to the bottom. Gold-band mosaic formed from five bands in the following order: blue outlined in white; purple; colorless, encasing shattered golden leaf outlined in white, turquoise, and green. These lengths of canes have been bent, forming a U-shaped motif. This pattern is repeated three times on the body.

Comments and Comparanda

On gold-band technique, see comments on cat. 145. On the form, see Isings 1957, pp. 24–24, form 7. For comparanda from various museum collections, see: Calvi 1968, p. 62, plate 4 (from Aquileia); Oliver 1967, p. 24, fig. 14, 15; La Baume and Salomonson 1976, p. 29, no. 30, color table III; Goldstein 1979, p. 203, no. 556, plates 31, 42 = Harden et al. 1987, p. 41, no. 17 = Cesarin 2019, p. 183, plate XIII (R117); JGS 1980, p. 88, no. 3; Christie’s 1985, pp. 94, 101, no. 161; Loudmer and Kevorkian 1985, p. 45, no. 97; Grose 1989, p. 339, nos. 605–607; Maier et al. 1994, p. 269 and fig. 144 (from a Roman tomb at Nea Paphos, Cyprus); 3000 Jahre Glaskunst, p. 68, no. 198; Kunina 1997, p. 268, nos. 95, 96; Sternini 1998, p. 70, no. Vl9, plate IV; Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2000, p. 156, no. 194; Tartari 2005, pp. 109–110, no. 186, fig. 5; Lightfoot 2007, pp. 46–47, no. 43. Also see Fitzwilliam 1978, p. 25, no. 36, for a squat example.

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

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 104, no. 274; p. 106, plate no. 274.

Wight 2011, pp. 1, 2, fig. 1.

Exhibitions

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

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