225. Flask

Condition

In fair condition. Surface bears a slight iridescent sheen on the body and some flaking on the neck.

Description

The vessel was initially blown in a small, slightly conical mold with 19 vertical ribs. Fire-polished, vertical rim; wide, conical mouth; short neck—actually a constriction at the transition from the mouth to the body. The upper part of the body is cylindrical and the lower is bulbous; both covered with mold-blown ribs, well-defined and vertical on the upper part, faint and S-shaped on the lower part. The vessel stands on a flat, slightly concave bottom. No pontil mark is visible on the bottom.

A thick coil is wound once around the mouth at mid-height. A fine thread is spirally wound 10 times around the lower part of the mouth.

Comments and Comparanda

Free- and mold-blown vessels of this particular shape, decorated with thick and thin trails of glass around the mouth, are known from eastern Mediterranean sites: Dussart 1998, p. 150, form BX 42, plate 42, from Kerak, dated between the fifth and seventh centuries CE; Kraeling 1962, p. 270, plate 64b, bottom, center, a find from Ptolemais from a post-fourth-century fill. Unprovenanced examples include one in the Newark Art Museum (Auth 1976, p. 217, no. 440); unpublished flask from the Toledo Museum of Art (no. 1923.1322). In addition, for a free-blown but very similar example from Israel, dated between the fifth and seventh centuries CE, see Barag 1974, p. 13*, fig. 2:7, plate XXVII:5; for an unprovenanced, smooth example, see Auth 1976, p. 129, no. 161; Stern 2001, p. 305, no. 168; Israeli 2003, p. 172, no. 190; Antonaras 2012, p. 162, no. 230.

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. 179, no. 496.

Exhibitions

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