Condition
Fully preserved; some cracks are visible; surface pitted and in areas discolored. The surface has some abrasions and nicks. White-yellow sand from the core is still visible on the interior.
Description
Blue ground, now opaque; opaque white decoration. Broad, horizontal rim-disk; cylindrical neck; straight-sided piriform body that turns abruptly inward and downward to a convex bottom. Two lugs near the neck.
A marvered white thread is wound 17 times around the body, from the bottom to the rim. At the upper part of the body, below the lugs and down to the carination, nine coils of the thread are combed, forming upright festoons.
Comments and Comparanda
On core-formed alabastra of this period, see comments on cat. 29. For the classification of this particular alabastron, see Grose, David Frederick. 1989. Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50. New York: Hudson Hills Press., class III:E, alabastron form III:5. The majority of the alabastra of this form are better proportioned and quite similar among themselves, quite different to the squatter variant of this vessel, which is very similar to an example from Amathous, Cyprus (Harden, Donald B. 1981. Catalogue of Greek and Roman Glass in the British Museum, vol. 1: Core- and Rod-Formed Vessels and Pendants and Mycenean Cast Objects. London: British Museum., p. 128, no. 340).
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
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 76, no. 200.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)