Condition
Fully preserved; small fill on the rim; some iridescence in the interior.
Description
Slightly flaring, in-folded, tubular rim; short, cylindrical neck; oval body, resting on a flat base. The seam mark indicates that this piece was blown in a mold of two vertical, hemispherical parts. Along the bottom the straight seam between the two parts of the mold is visible. The entire body is decorated with mold-blown relief designs; namely, 28 elongated tongues cover the upper body, and 29 petals cover the lower body. The central part of the body is covered by a tendril scroll, flanked by a groove with raised ridges above and below. Two vertical, coil handles have been applied to the shoulder and drawn up to the mouth. One handle is dark gray with purple striations, and the second is purple with dark gray striations.
Comments and Comparanda
There are several published mold-blown flasks decorated with a tendril scroll around the body that is flanked by tongues and petals, decoration that appears in at least three different variants. They have either one or two handles, and it has been suggested (Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 152) that they represent a miniature version of glass amphorae like the ones signed by the famous glassblower Ennion (see Kunina, Nina. 1997. The Art Treasures of Russia: Ancient Glass in the Hermitage Collection. St. Petersburg: State Hermitage/ARS Publishers., p. 273, nos. 109–110; Lightfoot, Christopher S., Zrinka Buljević, Yael Israeli, Karol Wight, and Mark T. Wypyski. 2014. Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., pp. 74, 127, nos. 3, 35). For direct parallels, see Auth, Susan Handler. 1976. Ancient Glass at the Newark Museum from the Eugene Schaefer Collection of Antiquities. Newark, NJ: Newark Museum., pp. 71, 199, nos. 66, 329–330; Platz-Horster, Gertrud. 1976. Antike Gläser: Ausstellung, November 1976–Februar 1977, Antikenmuseum Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Berlin: Antikenmuseum Berlin., p. 39, nos. 56–57; Kunina, Nina Z., and N. P. Sorokina. 1972. “Stekliannye balzamarii Bospora.” Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha 13: 146–177., pp. 161–162, fig. 7, no. 34; Kunina, Nina Ζ. 1973. “Sirijskie vidutye v forme steklianye sosudy iz nekropolia Pantikapeia.” In Pamiatniki antichnogo prikladnogo iskusstva: Sbornik statej, ed. K. S. Gorbunova, 101–154. Leningrad: Avrora., pp. 118–120, fig. 16.1.3–5; Kunina, Nina. 1997. The Art Treasures of Russia: Ancient Glass in the Hermitage Collection. St. Petersburg: State Hermitage/ARS Publishers., p. 280, nos. 138, 140; Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 153, no. 57; Dusenbery, Εlsbeth B. 1998. Samothrace: The Nekropoleis. Catalogues of Objects by Categories. Bollingen Series LX.11. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press., pp. 1079–1080; Weinberg, Gladys D., and Eva Marianne Stern. 2009. Vessel Glass. Athenian Agora XXXIV. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens., p. 68, no. 151, fig. 8; Antonaras, Anastassios. 2017. Glassware and Glassworking in Thessaloniki: First Century BC–Sixth Century AD. Oxford: Archaeopress., p. 139, form 114.
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. 146, no. 415.
Stern, Eva Marianne. 1995. The Toledo Museum of Art. Roman Mold-Blown Glass: The First through Sixth Centuries. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider., p. 152, n. 3n.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)