Condition
Fully preserved but mended.
Description
Fire-polished, horizontal rim with a cutout fold beneath it, giving the impression of an applied coil. Short and wide neck ending in a diaphragm; pear-shaped body, standing on a mildly concave bottom. An annular pontil mark (W. 2, Th. 0.1 cm) is visible on its bottom. Around the body four deep, vertical indentations.
Comments and Comparanda
Sprinklers, or dropper flasks, emerge before the middle of the third century CE and stand out among the extremely diverse fourth-century CE Syrian glass production. They are usually flasks of different shapes: amphoriskoi, tubes, animal- and head-shaped flasks, but also jars. They have in common the diaphragm at the base of their neck that allowed the content—apparently some costly liquid, oil or perfume—to exit one drop at the time. It has been proposed that the reference in Jewish sources to a “flask whose brim is squashed inside it” refers to sprinklers (Tosefta Miqva’ot 6[7]:22 cited in Israeli, Yael. 2003. Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: The Eliahu Dobkin Collection and Other Gifts. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., p. 222). They were often decorated with expanded geometric motifs blown in full-size molds. Sprinklers were made in Syria, eastern Palestine, and Mesopotamia, although they appear occasionally in other regions too (Stern, Eva Marianne. 1977. Ancient Glass at the Fondation Custodia (Collection Frits Lugt) Paris. Archaeologia Traiectina 12. Groningen: Wolfers-Noordhoff., pp. 95–100; Stern, Eva Marianne. 2001. Roman, Byzantine, and Early Medieval Glass, 10 BCE–700 CE: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz., pp. 133–134, 152–153; Dussart, Odile. 1998. Le verre en Jordanie et en Syrie du sud. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 152. Beirut: Institut Français d’Archéologie du Proche-Orient., pp. 161–162, types BXII.211, 212, 2131, 2132, 22). The earliest examples from Dura-Europos predate the destruction of the city in 256 CE (Clairmont, Christoph W. 1963. The Excavations at Dura-Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. Final Report 4, Pt. 5. New Haven, CT: Dura-Europos Publications., pp. 104–106, nos. 486–503, plate XII). The finds from the cemetery at Tell Mahuz in Mesopotamia are dated to the third–fourth centuries (Negro Ponzi, Maria Maddalena. 1984. “Glassware from Choche (Central Mesopotamia).” In Arabie Orientale, Mésopotamie et Iran méridional de l’Age du fer au début de la période islamique. Recherche sur les Civilisations, ed. R. Boucharlat and J.-F. Salles. Mémoire 37: 33–40., pp. 33–40). For sprinkler flasks of the same form, with snake-thread decoration, see cat. 346 and cat. 349, and with pinched fins, see cat. 347.
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. 216, no. 629.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)