280. Flask

Condition

Covered with iridescent weathering.

Description

Fire-polished, flaring rim; cylindrical neck, tapering toward the body; globular body; flat, concave bottom. A circular, solid pontil mark (W. 1.5 cm) is visible at the center of the bottom.

Comments and Comparanda

This flask belongs to a variant of the well-known short-necked, bulbous unguentaria that appear in the first century in all Mediterranean Roman provinces (Isings 1957, pp. 22–23, form 6). In this variant, the body is considerably more voluminous and the bottom is wider than in some comparable finds from Italy (De Tommaso 1990, p. 39, type 4; Mandruzzato and Marcante 2007, pp. 65–66, nos. 59–61) and Dalmatia (Ravagnan 1994, p. 83, nos. 148–149), all of them dated to the first century CE.

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. 198, no. 543.

Exhibitions

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