168. Cup

Condition

Fully preserved; small part of the rim missing. Small areas in the motifs are calcinated.

Description

Cut-off rim; conical neck with mildly convex walls; squat, globular body; flat bottom. A wavy tendril running between two horizontal ridges encircles the neck. On the shoulder are 13 trefoil arches, each one containing two smaller arches, flanked by vertical, Y-shaped bars. On the mildly convex central part of the body, a frieze of vertical ribs is flanked by two horizontal ridges, followed lower by a smooth band and two more ridges before the final curving to the bottom. Two raised concentric circles form base-rings, and at the center of the bottom is a recess.

Comments and Comparanda

Probably connected to the group of vessels with pronounced shoulder—mostly ribbed bowls and a few truncated beakers with diamond-shaped bosses—that are considered western products of the mid-first century CE (Stern 1995, pp. 110–111, no. 12). There is also one ovoid cup in this group, which has on the upper body a similar “floral and foliage spray,” at the middle an EYΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ ΕΦΩ ΠΑΡΕΙ inscription, and lower godroons (tongues); see Price 1991, p. 61 plate XVII.b, having in common the floral scroll on the shoulder and the vertical ribbing on the body.

Provenance

By 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his daughter, Ingrid Reisser, 1988; 1988–2004, Ingrid Reisser (Böblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004

Bibliography

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 160, no. 449.

Exhibitions

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

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