175. Flask with Mythological Figures

Condition

Mended. A small fill on the shoulder. Flaking, iridescent weathering on most of the body. A crack is visible along the overblow and around the bottom.

Description

Cut-off vertical rim; cylindrical neck wider toward its base, with a constriction at the transition to the body; low, almost horizontal shoulder; conical body, standing on a flat, mildly concave bottom.

The body is decorated in very high relief, with three male Bacchic figures standing on a horizontal groundline, separated by freestanding fluted columns with double torus base and conical capital. The columns conceal the mold seams. The figures are:

Dionysus: stands naked, frontal, left arm raised, holding probably his thyrsus, which is actually not present, and right arm lowered, holding a vessel from which he feeds his panther; jar beside his left leg.

Pan: naked with horns and goat-legged; his torso is presented frontally, but he walks to the right carrying a λαγοβόλον (shepherd’s crook) in his left hand.

Silenus: wearing a short kilt; his torso is shown frontally, but he moves to the right, carrying a wineskin on his shoulders. With his right hand he is holding the neck, and his left hand on his waist forms a wider base on his left shoulder for the larger part of the wineskin. He is holding a curved stick almost behind him under the wineskin, probably a λαγοβόλον.

An interesting feature of the relief’s rendering is the fact that the musculature of the figures is detailed and naturalistic, but the heads and the facial features were actually not carved in the mold and thus the heads are extremely stylized. There is no decoration on the bottom, but a small irregular indentation at the center.

Comments and Comparanda

The same male figures are represented on three more flasks and on fragments of another three. With the exception of one, on their bottom appears the phrase ΠΙΕ ΖΗΣΑΙΣ pie zesais (“Drink! live!”) in Greek letters (Matheson 1980, pp. 105–107, no. 280; Clairmont 1963, pp. 35–37, nos. 127–129, plate XIX). The only other flask of which the bottom does not bear an inscription is at the Corning Museum of Glass (Whitehouse 2001a, pp. 57–59, no. 529).

The date of the flasks has puzzled researchers for a long time (Harden et al. 1987, p. 154). The shape and the decoration with mythological figures are consistent with the first century CE, but the shape of the neck and the rim are known in vessels in the third and fourth centuries (Isings 1957, form 103). In addition, the relief, compared to the mythological beakers of the first century, is far too high, and the represented figures, which are larger and more robust that the first-century ones, are three and not four as in the earlier examples. Furthermore, Whitehouse (Whitehouse 2001a, p. 59) noted also that the inscription ΠΙΕ ΖΗΣΑΙΣ does not appear on first- or second-century glasses. As Susan Auth (Auth 1996, pp. 103–112) has phrased it: “This motto appears on glass vessels from the middle of the third century to the end of the fourth century CE connected to a symbolism of a wish for eternal life.” Overall it seems that they fit much better in the third century, possibly representing some artistic revival in art with emphasis on classicism.

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. 167, no. 459, color plate on p. 157.

Exhibitions

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

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