Condition
Condition is good, and vessel is intact. Some small areas of iridescence and some minor nicks and scratches. No impurities and very few pinprick bubbles.
Description
Rough, uneven, cracked-off, slightly flaring rim; hemispherical body; slightly concave bottom. Around the body, 1.7 cm below the rim, are 16 unevenly spaced, vertical pinched ribs. A white thread is wound around the vessel from the center of the bottom to just below the rim: nine rotations in the area below the rim, 10 rotations on the ribs (almost invisible between the ribs), and at least two more on the lowest part of the body to the center of the bottom.
Comments and Comparanda
One of the earliest free-blown forms of tableware are the ribbed bowls, known by the German term “zarte Rippenschalen.” They appear at the beginning of the first century CE and cease to be produced shortly after the middle of the century. They were made in natural bluish and yellowish glass (cat. 238), but also in intense colors, including translucent brown, blue (this vessel), and purple (cat. 237). Milky white threads were often used to decorate the intensely colored vases, and opaque white examples were decorated with translucent blue threads. These threads were spirally wound from the center of the bottom to the transition to the rim of the vessel, and then the ribs were pinched around the body. A considerable number of published examples are monochrome and do not have any additional applied decoration. On the form and many direct parallels from controlled excavation sites, see Haevernick, Thea Elisabeth. [1958] 1981. “Zarte Rippenschalen.” In Beiträge zur Glasforschung: Die wichtigsten Aufsätze von 1938 bis 1981, ed. Axel von Saldern, xi–xxviii. Mainz: von Zabern. [Originally published in Saalburg-Jahrbuch: Bericht des Saalburg-Museums 17: 76–91.], pp. XI–XXVIII; Haevernick, Thea Elisabeth. [1967] 1981. “Die Verbreitung der ‘zarten Rippenschalen.’” In Beiträge zur Glasforschung: Die wichtigsten Aufsätze von 1938 bis 1981, ed. Axel von Saldern, 171–179. Mainz: von Zabern. [Originally published in Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 14 (1967): 153–166.]; Isings, Clasina. 1957. Roman Glass from Dated Finds. Groningen: Wolters., pp. 35–36, form 17; Lith, Sophia Maria Elisabeth van. 1977. Römisches Glas aus Velsen. Oudheidkundige mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 58. Leiden: Rijksmuseum van Oudheiden., pp. 29–38; Biaggio-Simona, Simonetta. 1991. I vetri Romani: Provenienti dalle terre dell’attuale Cantone Ticino. Locarno: Dadò., pp. 71–74; Rütti, Beat. 1991. Die römischen Gläser aus Augst und Kaiseraugst. Augst: Römermuseum.; Fünfschilling, Sylvia. 2015. Die römischen Gläser aus Augst und Kaiseraugst. Kommentierter Formenkatalog und ausgewählte Neufunde 1981–2010 aus Augusta Raurica. Forschungen in Augst 51. Augst: Augusta Raurica., AR 28; Stern, Eva Marianne. 2001. Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE–700 CE: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz., pp. 82–83, no. 24; Weinberg, Gladys D., and Eva Marianne Stern. 2009. Vessel Glass. Athenian Agora XXXIV. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens., pp. 45–46; Antonaras, Anastassios. 2017. Glassware and Glassworking in Thessaloniki: First Century BC–Sixth Century AD. Oxford: Archaeopress., pp. 57–58, form 8.
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. 100, no. 262; p. 103, plate no. 262.
Wight, Karol. 2011. Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum., pp. 94, 98, fig. 67.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)