Condition
Intact; milky incrustation over parts of the body.
Description
Fire-polished, rounded rim, pinched to form a trefoil mouth; short, wide, cylindrical neck; cylindrical body with overhanging horizontal shoulder; flat bottom, slightly indented at center. Body covered with 27 mold-blown vertical ribs. A thick, greenish coil is wound 11 times spirally from under the mouth to the center of the bottom. An almost vertical, smooth strap handle made of greenish glass is applied on the shoulder, drawn upward and then inward, forming a thumb rest at top and attached on the upper part of the neck up to the tip of the rim. The whole vessel is badly executed and lopsided. On the bottom, a round wad of greenish glass (W. 1.4 cm) where the pontil was attached renders the vessel unstable.
Comments and Comparanda
Mold-blown cylindrical jugs with vertical ribs are known from Syro-Palestinian sites dated to the fourth century CE, and this fashion continues into the sixth century. The purple color of the body and the combination with the greenish handle is more common in the fourth century (Stern, Eva Marianne. 2001. Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE–700 CE: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz., pp. 265–266). The closest parallel, which is unprovenanced, is in the Princeton University Art Museum (Antonaras, Anastassios. 2012. Fire and Sand: Ancient Glass in the Princeton University Art Museum. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press., p. 96–97, no. 116). Quite similar but slightly different jugs are the following: von Saldern, Axel. 1980. Glas von der Antike bis zum Jugendstil: Sammlung Hans Cohn, Los Angeles/Cal. = Glass 500 B.C. to A.D. 1900: The Hans Cohn Collection, Los Angeles/Cal. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 68, no. 60; Stern, Eva Marianne. 2001. Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE–700 CE: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz., p. 283, no. 148; Arveiller-Dulong, Véronique, and Marie-Dominique Nenna. 2005. Les verres antiques du Musée du Louvre 2: Vaisselle et contenants du Ier siècle au début du VIIe siècle après J.-C. Paris: Somogy., p. 380, no. 1012 (all examples are slightly different). Further, the following jugs are comparable: Hayes, John W. 1975. Roman and Pre-Roman Glass in the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum., p. 113, nos. 428–431; Auth, Susan Handler. 1976. Ancient Glass at the Newark Museum from the Eugene Schaefer Collection of Antiquities. Newark, NJ: Newark Museum., p. 209, no. 391; Hizmi, Hananya. 1997. “Two Burial Caves in Rafidiya (Schechem).” ‘Atiqot 32: 45* [English summary], 125–130 [Hebrew]., p. 45, fig. 6:18; Whitehouse, David B. 2001. Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 2. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass., p. 181, no. 722; Israeli, Yael. 2003. Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: The Eliahu Dobkin Collection and Other Gifts. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., p. 184, no. 218; Arveiller-Dulong, Véronique, and Marie-Dominique Nenna. 2011. Les verres antiques du Musée du Louvre 3: Parure, instruments et éléments d’incrustation. Paris: Somogy Editions., p. 380, no. 1012. For very similar vessels with plain rim, see Stern, Eva Marianne. 2001. Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE–700 CE: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz., p. 203, no. 148, with further bibliography.
Provenance
1979, Edwin A. Lipps, 1922–1988 (Pacific Palisades, California), donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1979
Bibliography
Unpublished
Exhibitions
None