284. Flask with Spout

Condition

Probably intact; it is possible that the spout is mended. Some calcination and pitting.

Description

Fire-polished, flaring rim; fine cylindrical neck; spherical body; flat bottom. No pontil mark visible on the bottom. On the shoulder, a conical spout was formed by puncturing and drawing out the body. From the lower body to the rim, a fine thread, probably originally yellow, is spirally wound seven times.

Comments and Comparanda

This flask can be ascribed to a generic form of globular flasks, very widely distributed in the early first century CE (Isings 1957, p. 16, form 26a), distinguished though by the spout on its shoulder, which is a feature known in larger, mostly bag-shaped vessels of that time known as guti (see comments on cat. 285). The vessel is decorated with a thread that was melted flush with the surface, a feature present in both the eastern and western provinces of the Roman Empire in the first century CE (Isings 1957, pp. 22–23, form 6); see comments and parallels for cat. 317.

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. 114, no. 308; p. 110, plate no. 308.

Exhibitions

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

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