Condition
Partly complete, lid missing; body reassembled with large fills; numerous cracks; surface pitted.
Description
Straight, vertical, unworked rim; cylindrical body with horizontal ribs at top and bottom; flat bottom. Mold-blown zone of eight alternating upright and inverted palmettes, each with seven leaves. The upright palmettes have thick out-turned leaves and the inverted palmettes have thin curling-up and -inward leaves. Four relief concentric circles and a central recessed boss decorate the base. The upper ridge was holding the lid, which, judging by other fully preserved examples, was conical with cylindrical unworked rim. A few splashed yellow blobs, marvered flush, on the bottom and around the body.
Comments and Comparanda
On splashware, see comments on cat. 158. This particular cylindrical box is referred to by the ancient Greek term “pyxis,” which essentially denoted all lidded small boxes made of precious and plain materials, glass among them (Hilgers, Werner. 1969. Lateinische Gefassnamen: Bezeichnungen, Funktion und Form römischer Gefäße nach den antiken Schriftquellen. Düsseldorf: Rheinland-Verlag., pp. 265–267). They were used to hold medicines, cosmetics, and magical ingredients (Hilgers, Werner. 1969. Lateinische Gefassnamen: Bezeichnungen, Funktion und Form römischer Gefäße nach den antiken Schriftquellen. Düsseldorf: Rheinland-Verlag., pp. 265–267, no. 308). The glass pyxides were ideal as containers, neither contaminating the contents nor absorbing them. They are all mold-blown, and although they all are decorated with rows of palmettes, subtle differences in the motifs distinguish four variants in details, such as the spacing between the palmettes and the plasticity of the leaves (Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., pp. 169–170). This particular vessel belongs to the most populous variant (Kern, Johan Hendrik Caspar. 1954. “A Fragmentary Mould-Blown Glass Pyxis from Pompeii.” Oudheidkundige Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 35: 33–37., pp. 34–35, fig. 7; Matheson, Susan B. 1980. Ancient Glass in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery., p. 48, no. 125; Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., pp. 69–172, nos. 79–82; Whitehouse, David B. 2001. “Cut and Engraved Glass.” In Glass of the Sultans, exh. cat., ed. Stefano Carboni and David Whitehouse, 155–198. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., pp. 32–33, nos. 500, 501; Israeli, Yael. 2003. Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: The Eliahu Dobkin Collection and Other Gifts. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., p. 127, nos. 125, 126, also in Israeli, Yael. 2011. Made by Ennion: Ancient Glass Treasures from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., pp. 62–65; Antonaras, Anastassios. 2012. Fire and Sand: Ancient Glass in the Princeton University Art Museum. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press., p. 76, no. 75). For examples of the other variants, see Auth, Susan Handler. 1976. Ancient Glass at the Newark Museum from the Eugene Schaefer Collection of Antiquities. Newark, NJ: Newark Museum., p. 67, no. 61 variant 3rd; von Saldern, Axel. 1980. Glas von der Antike bis zum Jugendstil: Sammlung Hans Cohn, Los Angeles/Cal. = Glass 500 B.C. to A.D. 1900: The Hans Cohn Collection, Los Angeles/Cal. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 50, no. 42. Two examples from Pompeii indicate that the form was in vogue before the destruction of the city by the eruption of the Vesuvius in 79 CE (Scatozza Höricht, Lucia Amalia. 1995. I vetri romani di Ercolano. Cataloghi. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 81; Kern, Johan Hendrik Caspar. 1954. “A Fragmentary Mould-Blown Glass Pyxis from Pompeii.” Oudheidkundige Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 35: 33–37., pp. 34–35). The decoration evokes contemporaneous silverware (Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1977. Silver for the Gods: 800 Years of Greek and Roman Silver, exh. cat. Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art., pp. 136–137, nos. 87, 88: Boscoreale saltcellar; dish from Trinquetaille, pp. 132–133, no. 84).
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
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., pp. 158–159, no. 444.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)