295. Jug

Condition

Severely weathered. Blue iridescence and patchy accretions cover one side. A fill has been added on the rim.

Description

In-folded, flaring rim; cylindrical neck, wider toward the biconical body; flat bottom. A fine strap handle has been applied on the shoulder and drawn up, stretching beyond the rim and bent in an acute angle to meet the upper surface of the rim, where it is bent once more at a right angle, ending in a small thumb rest.

Comments and Comparanda

There are opaque red striations on the body and the handle, indicating that red glass was used in the same workshop either to decorate transparent vessels or even to form entire vessels. This jug is made of dark green glass, known mainly from finds dated in the fourth century CE. For a close parallel, see Antonaras 2012, p. 172, no. 248. Also, see comparable jugs in Israeli 2003, p. 175, no. 194; Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2005, p. 380, no. 1013. In addition, handleless flasks with the same characteristic body have been ascribed to the Syro-Palestinian region, dated to the third–fourth centuries CE (see Abdul Hak 1965, p. 31, fig. 12; Stern 1977, pp. 80–82; Stern 2001, p. 241, no. 127; Auth 1976, p. 217, no. 442).

Provenance

Louis de Clercq, French, 1836–1901 (Paris, France); 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

de Ridder 1909, p. 185, no. 348.

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 136, no. 378.

Exhibitions

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