Condition
Severely weathered; repaired with small fills near the rim. The surface is iridescent and pitted.
Description
The rim is vertical and flattened. On the exterior of the rim and 0.5 cm beneath it, a tooled horizontal ridge marks the transition to a wide, cylindrical neck, which tapers toward the body. Mold-blown, rectangular body; rounded shoulder; rests on a flat bottom.
Identical relief, mold-blown decoration appears on all four sides of the body: at the center of each side there is a six-pointed star. At the upper two corners of the side there are two hardly noticeable reliefs, probably circular blobs, and on the lower two corners triangular reliefs. The relief is not crisp and it is mostly faded. On the bottom is visible a scar of a solid pontil (1.4 × 1 cm).
Comments and Comparanda
This flask belongs to a small group of square mold-blown vessels, apparently made in the eastern Mediterranean, decorated mostly with vegetal motifs; their date remains unclear and they have been ascribed either to the Byzantine (fourth–seventh centuries) or the early Islamic (eighth–ninth centuries) periods: Jenkins, Marilyn. 1986. “Islamic Glass. A Brief History.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 44: 1–56., p. 17, nos. 11–12 (no. 11 bears identical decoration), dated between the seventh and ninth centuries CE; Bauer, P. C. V. 1938. “Glassware.” In Gerasa: City of the Decapolis. An Account Embodying the Record of a Joint Excavation Conducted by Yale University and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (1928–1930), and Yale University and the American Schools of Oriental Research (1930–1931, 1933–1934), ed. Carl Hermann Kraeling, 513–546. New Haven, CT: American Schools of Oriental Research., p. 544, no. 100, plate CXLB, fig. 30, from a Byzantine (fourth–seventh centuries) context; Lane, Arthur. 1937. “Medieval Finds at Al Mina in North Syria.” Archaeologia 87: 19–78., p. 68, fig. 12.H, from a nonstratified context; Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1980. Ancient Glass in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh. Pittsbourgh, PA: Carnegie Institute., p. 131, no. 230; Whitehouse, David B. 2001. Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 2. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass., p. 135, nos. 644–645, dated to the period either between the fifth and seventh centuries or between the ninth and twelfth centuries CE; Goldstein, Sidney M., J. M. Rogers, Melanie Gibson, and Jens Kröger. 2005. Glass: From Sasanian Antecedents to European Imitations. Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art 15. London: Nour Foundation., p. 44, nos. 24–26, dated between the fifth and seventh centuries; Ratković-Bukovčan, Lada. 2004. Staklo staroga vjeka u Muzeju Mimara. Zagreb: Muzej Mimara., p. 94, no. 51.
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
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 182, no. 506.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)