240. “Hofheim” Cup

Condition

Intact; surface is weathered, with patchy iridescence and chalky accretions.

Description

The rim is cracked-off; truncated conical upper part of body, and convex lower part; flat bottom; wheel-engraved lines 0.3 cm below the rim and a fine horizontal incision on the lower part of the body (3.7 cm from rim).

Comments and Comparanda

Among the earliest examples of free-blown vessels are those known as “Hofheim cups.” They are thick, usually bluish but occasionally intensely colored vessels, with wheel-cut horizontal grooves on the exterior, bulbous bodies, and high kicks at the bottom, characteristics that date them to the second half of the first century CE. They are ascribed to Italian or northwestern European workshops. The form generally appears in late Augustan and mainly Tiberian–Claudian contexts. Earlier examples are straight-walled with flat bottom; later ones are more bulbous, with sharp, high kicks on the bottom. Both features lead to an earlier date for this vessel (Isings 1957, pp. 27–30, form 12; Barag 1970a, vol. 2, plate 31, type III:1; Czurda-Ruth 1979, pp. 37–43; Oliver 1980, p. 255, no. 51, fig. 4; Stern 2001, pp. 73–74, nos. 16, 17; Antonaras 2012, p. 108, nos. 134–135).

Provenance

Pierre Mavrogordato, Greek, 1870–1948 (Berlin, Germany); 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. 195, no. 535.

Exhibitions

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