206. Amphoriskos / Bulbous Bottle with Two Handles

Condition

Intact.

Description

The seam mark indicates that this amphoriskos was made in a mold of two vertical, hemispherical parts; edges of mold sections not carefully aligned. Along the bottom the straight seam between the two parts of the mold is visible. Slightly flaring, in-folded tubular rim; short, cylindrical neck; spherical body resting on a flat base. The entire body is decorated with mold-blown relief designs; namely, 22 elongated tongues cover the upper and lower body, and the central part of the body is covered by a frieze of 12 Xs with thickened intersection point, bordered by a groove above and below. Two blue vertical coil handles with a few white striations have been applied to the shoulder and drawn up to the mouth at 90 degrees from the seam.

Comments and Comparanda

There are several published mold-blown flasks decorated with a central band filled with Xs around the central part of their body and flanked by tongues and petals; this decoration appears in a number of variants. They have either one or two handles, and it has been convincingly suggested (Stern 1995, p. 151) that they were used as aryballoi, containing oil used to clean the bodies of athletes, as is indicated by the metal rings preserved on the handles of some of them, like the one in the Princeton University Art Museum (Antonaras 2012, p. 78, no. 78). For direct parallels, see Lightfoot 1989, p. 25, no. 8; Stern 1995, pp. 150–153, nos. 53–58; Froehner 1903, p. 156, no. 1124, plate 202.3–4; Antonaras 2012, p. 78, no. 78.

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. 146, no. 417.

Stern 1995, p. 151 n. 5o.

Exhibitions

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