254. Bowl or Lamp

Condition

Intact; small areas covered with weathering and slight iridescence.

Description

Rough, cracked-off, vertical rim; deep, truncated, conical body with convex walls, tapering gradually toward the flat bottom. No pontil mark visible on the bottom. A pair of fine, horizontal grooves—2 cm beneath the rim and a single wide groove 4 cm lower—form a wide register within which are arranged two large oval blue blobs and two groups of four smaller, round blue blobs forming a lozenge.

Comments and Comparanda

Hemispherical bowls with slightly everted, unworked rim; hemispherical or even deeper body, flat base, and flat, occasionally slightly concave bottom are a very widely distributed form of glass vessels. They appear from the third century CE, and they were most widely distributed during the fourth century, surviving into the fifth century (Isings 1957, pp. 113–114, 131–133, form 96; Goethert-Polaschek 1977, form 49a, pp. 50–59; Antonaras 2017, pp. 60–63, form 12). The majority are undecorated, but there are many examples bearing engraved or wheel-cut decoration (cats. 251–253) with geometrical and figural representations, and there are examples with applied decoration consisting occasionally of blue threads and mostly of blue blobs (this vessel and cat. 255). This last type of decoration includes the potoria gemmata, expensive metal vessels decorated with enamel or with semiprecious stones and/or with colorful glass gems (Fremersdorf 1962, p. 11). This subgroup of the hemispherical bowls is known in both the east and the west (Isings 1957, p. 133, form 96b2; Antonaras 2017, pp. 62–63, form 12ii.3, wherein numerous dated comparanda are cited). The decoration was made while the vessel was still attached to the blowpipe and still adequately warm; it was marvered on a marble surface where lumps of glass were arranged in such a way that once they were attached to the vessel they would form the desired motif. After that the vessel was reheated to polish the surface and render the blobs shiny and smooth. Another probable method of applying blobs was by touching the heated tip of a rod of glass briefly onto the vessel and then swiftly removing it. After this procedure was repeated as many times as necessary to create the desired motifs, the vessel was reheated and the blobs smoothed. Mainly dark-blue blobs were used for the decoration, occasionally supplemented by red and green ones. They were arranged around the body of the vessel in a single or a double row, or in triangular formations, occasionally alternating with large single blobs. Published parallels include the following: Calvi 1968, plate 26:4–5; Goethert-Polaschek 1977, pp. 50–62, forms 49a–d, nos. 188, 210, 233–234, 268, plates 38–39, 41; Arveiller-Dulong and Arveiller 1985, pp. 112–113, nos. 209–210; Harden et al. 1987, p. 113, no. 46; Barkóczi 1988, pp. 97–98, nos. 146–147, plate XIII; Sazanov 1995, pp. 332–333; Cohen 1997, p. 408, plate III:6; Whitehouse 1997a, p. 216, no. 371; Antonaras 2012, p. 136, no. 136.

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. 250, no. 727.

Wight 2011, pp. 104, 123, fig. 93.

Exhibitions

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

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