363. Flask

Condition

The rim and the handles seem to be modern additions. There are some fills on the body and the upper neck and rim area.

Description

Cylindrical neck with a constriction at the transition to the spherical body, which stands on a flat bottom. Two white coil handles start at current mid-height of neck, bend, and end at the base of the neck. The body is covered by six partly overlapping, wheel-cut, circular medallions alternately formed by double and triple concentric circles. Along the middle of the body run two horizontal incisions. At mid-height of the neck is a horizontal incision.

Comments and Comparanda

The original rim of the vessel would have been vertical and cut-off, and thus the vessel belongs to a well-known form characterized by the globular body, the constriction at the base of the neck, and the unworked, cut-off rim, which was widely distributed during the third and fourth centuries CE all over the Roman Empire (Isings 1957, pp. 122–123, form 103; Antonaras 2017, pp. 162–163, form 145, wherein further bibliography).

The examples from this group often bear incised decorations, usually simple, consisting of parallel shallow grooves or bands of incisions. Less often, more complex geometrical motifs appear, such as concentric or intersecting circles and bands as on this vessel; quite rarely there are examples decorated with incised figural motifs (Painter 1975, pp. 54–67; Whitehouse 2001a, pp. 271–272, no. 865) or with painted themes (Doppelfeld 1966, p. 68, plate 165).

Finds with the intersecting circles and bands have appeared at both western and eastern sites, including Cologne (Fremersdorf 1967, pp. 109–111, plates 110, 112; La Baume and Salomonson 1976, p. 70, no. 250, plate 36:3); Bonn (Follmann-Schulz 1988, p. 38, plate 7:88); Ljubljana (Petru 1972, p. 62, no. 6, p. 127, n. 17); Susa in Turin and Castenaso in Bologna (Paolucci 1997, pp. 114–116, where a detailed bibliography of this decoration is compiled); Cherson (Kunina 1997, pp. 167, 299, no. 226); Duklja in Montenegro (Cermanović-Kuzmanović et al. 1975, pp. 154–155, figs. 12–13); Dura-Europos (Clairmont 1963, pp. 111–112, nos. 540–541, plate XII, XXXIV); and Tel el-Hosn, Syria, now in the Yale University Art Gallery (Matheson 1980, pp. 77–78, no. 203). Another example of unknown provenance is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ( von Saldern 1980b, pp. 80–81, no. 76).

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. 187, no. 517.

Wight 2011, pp. 77, 90, fig. 63.

Exhibitions

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

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