164. Cup

Condition

Intact; some parts are iridescent.

Description

Rim cut off just above a slight overblow; cylindrical body; flat bottom. Below the rim is a double horizontal ridge and another at the transition to the bottom. Two vertical palm fronds divide the body between the ridges into two sections, concealing the mold segments. A horizontal floral wreath is arranged along the middle of the body. Six pairs of obliquely arranged barley or wheat ears alternate with round flowers, probably stylized poppy pods; all stem from the central twig. On the bottom, there is a raised concentric ring close to the exterior, forming a base-ring, and a central boss.

Comments and Comparanda

The decoration is connected to Demeter, goddess of agriculture, grains, and food crops, whose symbol was a sheaf of barley; her flowers were poppies because they often grew up amid the wheatfields (LIMC IV, s.v. “Demeter,” pp. 844–892, esp. pp. 851, 858, nos. 45, 121). On Demeter’s presentation in ancient Greek poetry with poppies in her hands, see commentary on Theocritus’s Idylls (Gow 1952, Theocritus II:169, note to Idyll VII.157). It seems probable that poppy pods are illustrated, although iconographically pomegranate and poppy are similar, both spherical and crowned by a radiating element. They differ in the fact that the pomegranate’s sepals point down when the fruit hangs from the tree, whereas the poppy pod’s rosette points up when attached to the plant’s stem, like the ones depicted on the vessel (Ignatiadou 2012, p. 393). In addition, the poppy is directly associated with Demeter, while pomegranates had a bad connotation for the mother of Persephone, who was tricked by Hades into eating six seeds of a pomegranate and thus being forever tied to the Underworld, forced to remain there half the year (LIMC VIII, s.v. “Persephone,” pp. 956–978).

No exact parallel to this cup has been located. On three beakers with convex sides, the upper of the two friezes of the decoration display a very similar wreath with a central horizontal ridge with alternating pairs of ears of barley and two poppies; the lower band with a wine scroll, like the one on cat. 163: 3000 Jahre Glaskunst, p. 81, no. 272; Benzian 1994, p. 80, lot 139 = Sotheby Parke Bernet 1979, p. 168, lot 301; Bonhams 2004, lot 15 (= ex Constable-Maxwell Collection, London, ex British Rail Pension Fund Collection, London).

Provenance

By 1974, Gawain McKinley Ltd. (London, England); 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. 159, no. 146.

McKinley 1974, p. 5, ill. (lower right).

Wight 2011, pp. 76, 86, fig. 57.

Exhibitions

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

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