184. Grape Jug

Condition

A fill has been added on the shoulder. Incrustation on the body.

Description

In-folded, flaring trefoil rim sharply bent downward; conical neck, wider toward the body; flat shoulder; conical body in the shape of a grape bunch with seven rows of grapes. An applied coil wound one and a half times forms the base-ring on the bottom. A colorless strap handle, tooled into three ridges, is applied on the shoulder and drawn up to the rim, where it forms an overhanging thumb rest.

Comments and Comparanda

This jug belongs to a group of mold-blown vessels that render in a naturalistic fashion fruits like dates, pomegranates, and cedar and pine cones. Grape flasks are known in three different variants, appearing in three distinct periods of Roman times (Moirin and Arveiller-Dulong 2010). The oldest examples reproduce the bunch with greater naturalism, as in cats. 197–198 (Isings 1957, p. 94, form 78e; Antonaras 2017, pp. 142–143, form 118); they appear as early as the third quarter of the first century and continue into the early second century, and it has been assumed that they are Syro-Palestinian products (Stern 1995, p. 180). The later examples, like cat. 199, are dated to the end of the second century and render the grape more schematically. Two-handled examples appear particularly in the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire—probably locally produced there—in addition to the handleless variant that prevails in the east (Isings 1957, pp. 108–109, form 91a; Stern 1995, pp. 190–191, no. 119, with detailed bibliography). In addition, a single-handled blue jug known from Cologne, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, may be the closer parallel for this vessel (Fremersdorf 1961, p. 70, plate 141). Finally, there is a third subgroup comprising vessels with body modeled like a grape bunch standing on a discoid base. They are mainly found and were probably made in the Syro-Palestinian region, and they are ascribed to the third century based on stylistic features (Stern 1995, pp. 191–195, nos. 120–128).

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 et al. 1974, p. 174, no. 474.

Lierke 2009, p. 23, ill. [erroneously ascribed to the sixth century BCE]

Exhibitions

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

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