170. Mythological Beaker

Condition

Reassembled; large areas of the body are filled.

Description

Rim cracked off just above a slight overblow; conical body; flat bottom.

Four columns—lower part smooth, upper part fluted—each on a double torus base and with a possibly conical capital, separate four standing human figures: Fortuna and three nude male figures. Above the figures a swag links the columns. At the center over each swag is a circular boss. On the background on either side of the figures’ heads is a small X or cross-shaped motif. The figures stand on pedestals, and there is no continuous groundline. Below the figural zone appear plants with clearly defined stems, horizontal branches, and fruits (Wight 2003, p. 49). The mold seams are concealed in the columns. On the bottom are impressed three irregular, off-center concentric circles around a central boss.

Fortuna: a female figure facing front, her head in profile to the left. She stands on a pedestal, her weight on her right foot. She is wearing himation and cloak. In her lowered right hand she holds a rudder next to her right leg and behind her. In her left hand she holds a cornucopia.

Figure on the left of Fortuna: frontal nude male, his head in profile to the left. He stands on a pedestal, his weight on his right foot. An oval or bag-shaped object is held in his lowered right hand; some object or piece of drapery may rest upon his left shoulder. The figure has been identified with Mercury, holding his coin purse and cradling his caduceus against his right forearm (Wight 2003, p. 48).

Figure on the right of Fortuna: left part of the head, left shoulder and hand, and a small part of the body are preserved. Front-facing nude male figure, his head in profile to the left. He stands on a pedestal, his weight on his right foot, holding in his hand a circular object. The figure has been identified as Apollo, holding a phiale for libation in his left hand and wearing his bow strapped across his back in the missing part, extending over his right shoulder (Wight 2003, p. 48).

The fourth figure is missing. According to other examples of this subgroup of mythological beakers, here would be standing Bacchus, holding his thyrsus and a cluster of grapes, nude except for a nebris draped across his chest. (Weinberg 1972, p. 44; Wight 2003, pp. 47–49, group III).

Comments and Comparanda

The vessel belongs to a group of truncated conical beakers decorated with mold-blown figures; they are referred to as “mythological beakers” because of the mythological figures appearing on them. (For the classification of the shape: Weinberg 1972, pp. 26–47, with several examples dated to the second half of the first century CE.) This particular beaker, on the basis of the figures presented on it—Fortuna and three male figures (identified as Apollo, Bacchus, and Mercury), all of them standing on low pedestals looking to their right—and the architectural features that surround them, is ascribed to a subgroup with four more known parallels, which is considered to be among the earlier groups of mythological beakers (Wight 1994, pp. 49–51, group III).

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 1968, pp. 17, 21, no. 23.

Weinberg 1972, p. 45, no. 2, figs. 23–24.

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 167, no. 457.

Wight 1991, p. 87.

Wight 1994, pp. 49–50.

Wight 2011, pp. 77, 88, fig. 61.

Exhibitions

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

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

Meisterwerke der Glaskunst aus internationalem Privatbesitz (Düsseldorf, 1968–1969)