359. Amphoriskos / Two-Handled Flask

Condition

Fully preserved; part of the thread is missing.

Description

In-folded, tubular, flaring rim; conical mouth; short, cylindrical neck, wider toward the globular body, which stands on a tubular, pushed-in base-ring. No sign of a pontil mark on the bottom. A fine thread is wound spirally 13 times around the body and stops at the transition to the base. Two coil handles are placed on the shoulders, over the white thread; they bend, forming an open ring, and end on the lower neck.

Comments and Comparanda

Free-blown, small globular and bulbous flasks for oils, occasionally supplemented with small handles (Calvi 1969, plate 1:4; Mandruzzato and Marcante 2007, p. 76, no. 122), appeared in the early first century CE and soon became one of the most widespread forms of flask throughout the Roman Empire (Stern 1977, p. 35; De Tommaso 1990, pp. 39–40, type 5). They were often decorated with spirally wound threads, usually left unmarvered (Antonaras 2017, p. 146, form 122a, wherein several parallels are cited). For additional parallels, see comments on cat. 329.

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. 221, no. 644.

Exhibitions

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

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