194. Hexagonal Bottle with High-Relief Birds / Flask

Condition

Intact. The surface is weathered and presents an iridescent sheen, brown accretions, and flaking.

Description

Flaring, tubular rim, first folded out, then up- and inward flattened; cylindrical neck mildly constricted at its base; hexagonal body; downward-sloping shoulder and upward-sloping bottom joined by a hexagonal central part of the body; low, offset base with flat underside.

The mold-blown relief decoration, which is not crisp, is arranged in three registers. The central area is divided by seven smooth posts, each pair of them supporting an empty triangular pediment that covers part of the shoulder. A bucranium is placed over each post in the area between the pediments. Each square panel of the central area contains a bird or an insect perching or flying over a nest or rock in relief: (1) a simplified butterfly to the right, on a rock; (2) a bird with a long spoon-shaped bill to the right, on a nest; (3) a small songbird swooping down to left to feed invisible young in its nest; (4) a bird, a small raptor with diagonally outspread wings, flying to the left over a rock or nest; (5) a bird, perhaps a falcon, to the left, perched on an irregularly shaped rock; (6) a bird, perhaps an ibis, to the right, perched on a pot. The columns stand on a continuous baseline below which 26 adjacent vertical petals cover the lower part of the body to the bottom. The bottom is flat and the seams of the three-part mold are visible.

Comments and Comparanda

See cat. 193.

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. 144, no. 411.

Stern 1995, p. 144 n. 9g.

Exhibitions

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