212. Basket Amphoriskos

Condition

Intact; iridescence and pitting.

Description

In-folded, flaring rim; concave neck; ovoid body; flat base bisected by the mold seam. Two opposing coil handles are attached to the underside of the rim and are drawn down to the shoulder, where they are left floating, not attached to it. Handles positioned over the mold seam. Vessel shaped like a miniature amphora encased in a wicker basket. The basket ends on the shoulder with a rope-like thickening and consists of eight and 13 rows, on the upper and lower part, respectively, divided by a central wreath of eight pairs of laurel leaves alternating with laurel berries around the middle of the basket. On one side of the vessel the leaves point to the right, and on the other side they point to the left.

Comments and Comparanda

This flask is product of a Syro-Palestinian glass workshop that made handles in an unusual way, not adhering the lower attachment of the handle to the wall of the vessel. This peculiarity gave it the name the Workshop of the Floating Handles in scholarship. Technically it is closely related to Ennion’s and Aristeas’s workshops in Sidon, dated to the first half of the first century CE. Ten forms of mold-blown vessels, quite diverse among themselves, have been identified as products of this workshop: miniature amphorae, bulbous, bag-shaped, lenticular, and six-sided flasks; more peculiar flasks in the shapes of an acorn, a shell, and a ball; and head-shaped jugs. In addition, they produced free-blown vessels (Stern 1995, pp. 86–91). For this particular shape, see Israeli 1964, p. 39, no. 8a, b (juglets, not amphoriskoi); von Saldern 1968, p. 16, no. 34; Kunina 1973, pp. 111–112, fig. 13; Kunina 1997, p. 268, no. 94; Auth 1976, p. 68, no. 63; Matheson 1980, pp. 50–51, no. 128; 3000 Jahre Glaskunst, p. 78, nos. 252, 253; Stern 1995, p. 154, no. 59; Mandruzzato and Marcante 2007, p. 58, no. 17 = Calvi 1968, p. 105, no. 246, plate 16:4.

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, pp. 150, 155, no. 431.

Stern 1995, p. 154, no. 1b, p. 158, no. 2.

Wight 2011, pp. 73, 79, fig. 49.

Exhibitions

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

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