376. Kohl Tube

Condition

Part of the rim replaced with painted plaster or gypsum. A little weathering and some incrustation.

Description

Thick, slightly flaring rim; long, twisted, tubular body bearing seven ribs; a slight constriction, 1 cm below the rim, forms the short neck. The small, integral disk base does not allow the vessel to stand. A pair of small, curved, coil handles extend from the upper body to over the rim.

Comparanda Commentary

Thick unguentaria made of opaque glass, formed around a metal rod, appear both in a slender, cylindrical shape with twisted ribs and in a smaller, squat, jar-shaped variant with ribbed or smooth body. They had two tiny handles. They are usually in dark green, appearing black (this vessel, cat. 379), opaque turquoise (cat. 377), or blue (cat. 378) glass. They are dated provisionally between the fourth and the fifth centuries, and they are ascribed to the Syrian region (Abdul Hak 1965, pp. 27–28, figs. 2–3; Barag 1975, p. 30 n. 29). The majority of the kohl tubes bear spiraling ribs formed by twisting the vessel while it was still hot and malleable. A small group, dated to the seventh–eighth centuries CE, includes tubes with applied—i.e., trailed on—decoration either of the same color as the body or of opaque red and white glass (see comments on cat. 379). Based on tooling marks, it has been assumed that they were made by glass bead makers and not glassblowers (Stern 2001, p. 78). They were possibly used as kohl containers.

Published comparanda include Lamm 1930, vol. 1, pp. 46–47, nos. 2–4 and vol. 2, plate 8, in the British Museum (nos. 3 and 4 were acquired in Aleppo, Syria); Abdul Hak 1965, p. 28, fig. 2; Barag 1970a, vol. 2, type VII:7; von Saldern 1974, p. 188, no. 279, from the Hentrich Collection, now in the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; Auth 1976, pp. 147, 225, nos. 189, 490; Carboni 2001, p. 36, no. 1.1, from the al-Sabah Collection, now in the Kuwait National Museum; Miho Museum 2001, p. 116, no. 168; Stern 2001, pp. 133, 144, 186, 361, no. 78; Israeli 2003, p. 294, nos. 391–92; Whitehouse 2003, pp. 47–48, no. 960; Goldstein et al. 2005, p. 35, no. 8, from the Khalili collection.

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. 257, no. 752.

Exhibitions

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