235. One-Handled Cup

Condition

Reassembled from many fragments; small areas are filled.

Description

Fire-polished, irregular flaring rim; bulbous body; concave bottom. A small part of a pontil scar is visible on the bottom. Coil handle applied on the upper body, drawn upward, bent to form a wide circle, and attached under the rim. Fine, elongated white stripes traverse the blue ground of the handle.

Made with floret segments of mosaic canes, fused together and then free-blown. Each floret is made of a thick blue ground of glass combined with a fine white layer, folded spirally, probably in two revolutions.

Comments and Comparanda

The flask cat. 354 is made with the same technique as this vessel. The technique was used mainly for small vessels, such as jars, jugs, handled cups, and cylindrical cups. The distribution of findspots indicates that they were circulating from Britain through northwestern Europe to the northern coast of the Black Sea. Quite probably they were produced from the late first century to the second half of the second century CE, and they occasionally appear in third-century contexts. The mosaic pattern, even when appearing as curved lines, was probably made of florets with circles around a central dot. (On the technique, see Stern 2017, pp. 132–139; Stern and Fünfschilling 2020, pp. 41–68.)

The bulbous shape of the jug connects it to a well-known form of vessels, mainly from Italian sites, dated to the second half of the first century, although lacking the typical thumb-rest tab on the upper part of the handle (Isings 1957, p. 76, form 57; Beretta and Di Pasquale 2004, p. 241, nos. 2.39–2.40, p. 251, no. 2.69). The closest parallel, also made of dark blue and white florets, but a bit squat, is known from Nymphaion on the Black Sea coast (Kunina 1997, p. 317, no. 315, ill. 167). With regard to shape, equally close are three examples from Nymphaion (Kunina 1997, p. 317, nos. 312–314, ill. 166); another one, pale blue, is known from Cornus, Sardinia (Fortuna Canivet 1969, p. 24, fig. 23). Also, cf. von Saldern et al. 1974, no. 641.

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. 137, no. 383a.

Exhibitions

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

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