Condition
Fully preserved. Minor chipping on the rim.
Description
Flaring rim, with unworked, slightly everted lip; short and wide neck; calyx-shaped body; and flat bottom, with three concentric raised circles around a central recessed knob. An inscription in capital Greek runs around the vessel at greatest diameter in a frieze flanked by two ridges above and two below. It reads: ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ ΕΦΩ ΠΑΡΕΙ euphrainou epho parei (“rejoice with what you are present in”). A frieze of 36 upturned tongues in raised outline covers the lower part of the body.
Comments and Comparanda
There are two variants of this type of vessel, distinguished by the contour of the walls and the relation of the height to the diameter. This one belongs to the shorter, squatter variant with two ridges above the inscription (Harden, Donald Benjamin. 1935. “Romano-Syrian Glasses with Mould-Blown Inscriptions.” Journal of Roman Studies 25: 163–186., group G1i). Several examples have been noted throughout the Mediterranean, but it is accepted, partly because of the disk-shaped base section of the mold and the distribution pattern, that they were quite probably produced along the Syro-Palestinian coast (Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 97, no. 1 with detailed bibliography and comments; Whitehouse, David B. 2001. Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 2. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass., pp. 23–24, nos. 487–488; Antonaras, Anastassios. 2017. Glassware and Glassworking in Thessaloniki: First Century BC–Sixth Century AD. Oxford: Archaeopress., pp. 68–69, form 19).
The inscription has been interpreted in different ways but the most convincing is the one that considers it an abbreviated form of ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ ΕΠΙ ΤΟΥΤΩΙ ΕΦΩΙ ΠΑΡΕΙ. This phrase, which partly appears in the New Testament (Matthew 26:50: ‘Ἑταῖρε ἐφ’ ᾧ πάρει), translates as “Rejoice with what you are present” (Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 97). Pseudo-Zonaras, lexicon, s.v. “‘Ἐφ’ ᾧ πάρει,” 928, line 14. For the possibility that there is an Epicurean connotation in the inscription, see Fontaine, Paul, and Rina Margos. 2010. “Un gobelet ‘épicurien’ inédit au Musée du Verre de Charleroi, Milieu du 1er siècle apr. J.-C. Étude de l’inscription.” In D’Ennion au Val Saint-Lambert: Le verre soufflé-moulé. Actes des 23ème Rencontres de l’Association Française pour l’Archéologie du Verre. Colloque international, Bruxelles-Namur, 17–19 octobre 2008, ed. Chantal Fontaine-Hodiamont, Catherine Bourguignon, and Simon Laevers, 79–83. Scientia Artis 5. Brussels: Institut royal du patrimoine artistique., pp. 80–83.
Provenance
By 1992–1995, Mansour Gallery (London, England), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995
Bibliography
“Acquisitions/1995.” The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 24 (1996): 85–140., p. 90, no. 10.
No author. 1996. “Recent Important Acquisitions Made by Public and Private Collections in the United States and Abroad.” Journal of Glass Studies 38: 229–265., p. 229, no. 1.
Wight, Karol. 2011. Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum., pp. 104, 120, fig. 89.
Exhibitions
Ancient Art from the Permanent Collection (Los Angeles, 1999–2004)