190. Hexagonal Bottle with High-Relief Vessels / Flask

Condition

Fully preserved. Some incrustation on the interior and in small areas of the exterior. Small part of the body (the top of one of the columns) is modern fill.

Description

Flaring, in-folded, tubular rim; cylindrical neck, tapering toward the bottom; hexagonal body; flat bottom with raised base-ring. On the bottom are visible three straight mold seams that meet at the center.

On the shoulder, six pointed arches, each containing an unidentified, large, egg-shaped object. On the body, six rectangular panels are divided by columns, each with an abacus and torus capital, smooth shaft, and high double torus base. In the panels are presented six vessels, from left to right:

[Seam, concealed in the fruit and in the column’s shaft]

1. Krater, a footed bowl with tall cylindrical neck with vertical grooves, oblate body, and tall crooked stem, the mouth with two rows of rounded objects.

2. Amphora, a footed wide-mouthed vessel with two vertical handles on the shoulder. If not an amphora, probably a hydria with the third handle turned to the back.

[Seam, concealed in the fruit and in the column’s shaft]

3. Krater, a footed bowl with wide opening and two curving handles from shoulder to rim, the opening containing three rows of rounded objects, probably fruits.

4. Oinochoe, a footed jug with a round mouth and high handle to the right.

[Seam, concealed in the fruit and in the column’s shaft]

5. Amphora, a second footed wide-mouthed vessel as in panel no. 2.

6. Oinochoe, a spouted jug with handle to the right.

Around the bottom, fillets suspended from the center of one panel to the center of the adjacent panel, with alternating large and small fruits with knobbed surfaces below each column, the larger ones on the seams and covering the fillet.

Comments and Comparanda

Hexagonal bottles with high relief are the most common type of mold-blown vessels, probably connected to some recurring event or a religious function. This particular type is known as Vessels Type (Stern 1995, pp. 74–81, 115–117). Mold-blown, raised decoration arranged in three zones covers the body with what appears to be a hexagonal architectural structure with vessels set in arched niches or aediculae. The vessels are typical of late Hellenistic metalwares. Every tympanum contains an egg-shaped object, and between the columns stands a vessel—alternately, a jug, a bowl, and an amphora. Under the base line a curved fillet is hanging from the center of one panel to the adjacent panel with a piece of fruit at its center. This particular vessel belongs to Stern’s (1995) series A, widely distributed in the eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Aegean islands, and the Black Sea coast. Finds include: Kunina 1973, pp. 113–114, fig. 14; 54, no. 105, fig. 105, plate 5; Abdul-Hak and Abdul-Hak 1951, p. 114, no. 20, plate XLIX, no. 1; Zouhdi 1964, fig. 39 right; Clairmont 1963, p. 39, no. 146, plate XXI; Fitzwilliam 1978, no. 54a, ill. p. 44; Matheson 1980, p. 46, no. 122, fig. 122; Holy Land 1986, pp. 257–258, no. 138, ill.; Price and Cottam 1998, pp. 33–44, fig. 3, no. 27; Stern 1995, pp. 74–78, 113–129, with full bibliography; Antonaras 2012, p. 78, no. 79.

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 1968, p. 16, no. 20.

von Saldern et al. 1974, pp. 142–143, no. 401.

Wight 2011, pp. 75, 81, fig. 51.

Exhibitions

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

Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (Los Angeles, 2009)

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

Meisterwerke der Glaskunst aus internationalem Privatbesitz (Düsseldorf, 1968–1969)