282. Flask

Condition

Intact. Some incrustation on the interior.

Description

Cracked-off, very thick rim; short, cylindrical neck, tapering toward the body; pear-shaped body; flat, slightly concave bottom. On the body are 24 pinched warts arranged loosely in three rows. No pontil mark is visible on the undersurface, and a constriction is evident at the base of the neck.

Comments and Comparanda

Several pear-shaped vessels decorated with pinched warts are known from the eastern Mediterranean and they are dated between the fifth and seventh centuries. Parallels include the following: Whitehouse 2003, pp. 149–150, no. 1152; Spartz 1967, no. 134, plate 32, said to be from Syria; Auth 1976, p. 230, nos. 524, 526; Matheson 1980, p. 127, nos. 341, 342, said to be from Syria; Barakat Gallery 1985, p. 103, no. GF115; Loudmer and Kevorkian 1985, pp. 214–215, nos. 524–525; Yemen 1997, p. 209, found in Al-Jawf, Yemen.

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. 236, no. 690.

Exhibitions

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

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