Condition
Fully preserved; mended and repaired near the bottom. Surface pitted.
Description
Brownish-purple, now opaque, body; opaque turquoise decoration. Horizontal rim-disk; short, cylindrical neck, tapering toward the body; rudimentary sloping shoulder; cylindrical body, wider toward the shallow, convex bottom. Two opposing ring handles with knobbed tails on the shoulders.
An unmarvered thread, probably white but now gray due to weathering, is wound around the rim. One marvered white thread, now mainly appearing turquoise, is spirally wound 21 times around the neck and body, in almost horizontal rows.
Comments and Comparanda
On core-formed alabastra, see comments on cat. 10. For the classification of this particular alabastron, see Grose, David Frederick. 1989. Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50. New York: Hudson Hills Press., class I:F, alabastron form I:3B: pp. 140–142, nos. 81, 85–87, 89–91.
Provenance
1908, Arnold Vogell, 1857–1911 (Karlsruhe, Germany) [sold, Griechische Altertümer südrussischen Fundorts aus dem Besitze des Herrn A. Vogell, Karlsruhe (Versteigerung), Max Cramer, Cassel, Germany, May 26–30, 1908, lot 1060]; 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
Cramer, Max. 1908. Griechische Altertümer südrussischen Fundorts aus dem Besitze des Herrn A. Vogell, Karlsruhe. Versteigerung zu Cassel in der Gewerbehalle, Friedrich-Wilhelmsplatz 6. Cassel: G. Gotthelft., lot 1060.
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 70, no. 175.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)