301. Jug

Condition

Intact; some areas with iridescence, mostly on the neck and mouth area.

Description

Fire-polished rim; wide conical mouth; cylindrical neck wider toward the conical body. Thick turquoise coil wound under the rim, and another at the base of the neck. The body bears nine vertical elongated indentations, which cover it almost entirely. The vessel ends in a small, pad base made of a thick coil of turquoise glass wound three times and pressed flat, similar to the toes of clay amphorae. A coil handle, made of greenish glass with remains of turquoise glass in its upper part, starts on the shoulder and ends on the mouth, which is mildly deformed at that spot.

Comments and Comparanda

This jug has many common features with the distinctive group of Syro-Palestinian amphorae, free- and mold-blown ones dated to the fourth and fifth centuries CE (Stern 1977, pp. 84–85; Stern 2001, pp. 146–149, nos. 100–101). These common features, beginning with the characteristic color and quality of both green and turquoise glass, the shape of the base and the handle, the indentations along the body, and the decorative colored coil on the neck and under the rim, indicate that this jug was produced in the same workshop. For further comments on this production, see cat. 220.

Provenance

1908, Arnold Vogell, 1857–1911 (Karlsruhe, Germany) [sold, Griechische Altertümer südrussischen Fundorts aus dem Besitze des Herrn A. Vogell, Karlsruhe (Versteigerung), Max Cramer, Cassel, Germany, May 26–30, 1908, lot 992]; 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

Cramer 1908, p. 78, no. 992, fig. 50.

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 218, no. 635.

Exhibitions

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