182. Head Jug

Condition

Intact; some areas iridescent. Large areas with milky and dark-colored incrustation; small pieces of the rim flaked off.

Description

Cracked-off, everted rim; broad, conical neck, tapering toward the body; mold-blown head-shaped body; flat bottom. Body in form of youthful, clean-shaven male head, with straight long hair to the nape of neck and fringe over the forehead. Large, almond-shaped eyes with pronounced pupils; soft eyebrows; straight, wide nose; small mouth with full lips; round chin; large ears. Conical base formed of 3.5 revolutions of a thick trail. A wish-bone strap handle is applied to mid-neck in a large pad, drawn out and up, forming a horizontal part that was tooled into a thumb-rest tab, with acute angle below, and drawn vertically down to the upper part of the head’s back, and trailed off down to the base, with decoration of 21 horizontal ribs notched between lower attachment and bottom. The handle and the base are made of a different type of glass, seemingly opaque black glass, possibly dark green. Made in a two-part mold with open base—as evidenced by the plain, rough surface of the undersurface of the body. No pontil mark on the bottom. Vertical mold seam behind the ears incorporated in the hair.

Comments and Comparanda

See cat. 181.

Provenance

By 1977–1988, 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

JGS 1977, p. 170, no. 7, ill.

Wight 2011, pp. 97, 101, 104, fig. 71.

Exhibitions

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