Condition
Mended. Patches of flaky weathering.
Description
Flaring, out-folded, flattened, tubular rim; biconical body, upper part slightly concave, lower part slightly convex. Irregular, splaying, pushed-in tubular foot-ring. The floor is sharply kicked, forming a steep conical projection inside. At the center of the underside, a round pontil mark (W. approx. 1 cm) is visible.
Comments and Comparanda
Shallow bowls and bottles made of sealing-wax red glass, occasionally with a reddish-brown tint and dark brown or black veins running through it, have been plausibly proposed to have been made in Palestine, and they are dated in the eighth–ninth centuries CE (Carboni, Stefano, and David Whitehouse, eds. 2001. Glass of the Sultans, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., pp. 16–17; Brosh, Naahma. 2004. “Red Glass Vessels from Jerusalem.” Orient 39: 52–68.). They have been found in excavations at Hama (Riis, Poul Jorden. 1957. “Les verreries.” In Poul Jorden Riis and Vagn Poulsen, Hama: Fouilles et recherches de la fondation Carlsberg, 1931–1938, vol. IV. 2: Les verreries et poteries médiévales, 30–116. Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet., pp. 48, 61, fig. 178), Jerusalem (Brosh, Naahma. 2004. “Red Glass Vessels from Jerusalem.” Orient 39: 52–68., pp. 54–55), and Corinth (Davidson, G. R. 1952. The Minor Objects. Corinth XII. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens., pp. 107–109, 112, 116, 121, nos. 694, 699, 730, 759, 802, 807) and they are also noted in museum collections, namely in Eretz Israel Museum (Brosh, Naahma. 2004. “Red Glass Vessels from Jerusalem.” Orient 39: 52–68., p. 54; Carboni, Stefano, and David Whitehouse, eds. 2001. Glass of the Sultans, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., p. 17, fig. 2), the Kuwait National Museum (Carboni, Stefano. 2001. Glass from Islamic Lands: The Al-Sabah Collection. London: Thames & Hudson., p. 153, nos. 3.3.a–h), the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Brosh, Naahma. 2004. “Red Glass Vessels from Jerusalem.” Orient 39: 52–68., p. 54), and previously in the Smith Collection (Glass from the Ancient World: The Ray Winfield Smith Collection. 1957. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass in the Corning Glass Center., p. 201, no. 398) and the Benzian Collection (Benzian, Hans, Dragisa Momirovic, and Sotheby’s. 1994. The Benzian Collection of Ancient and Islamic Glass, 7 July 1994, sale cat. London: Sotheby’s., p. 105, no. 195).
Provenance
1966, Adra M. Newell, 1885–1966 (New York, New York), by bequest to Wheaton College, 1966; 1966–1978, Wheaton College (Norton, Massachusetts) [sold, Important Egyptian, Classical, and Western Asiatic Antiquities, Sotheby’s, New York, December 14, 1978, lot 20]; by 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
Dusenbery, Εlsbeth. 1971. “Ancient Glass in the Collections of Wheaton College.” Journal of Glass Studies 13: 9–33., no. 26, figs. 24–25.
Important Ancient Egyptian, Classical and Western Asiatic Antiquities, sale cat. 1978. London: Sotheby’s., lot 20, ill.
Niederstadt, Leah. 2018. “Building a Legacy for the Liberal Arts: Deaccessioning the Newell Bequest, Wheaton College.” In Is It Okay to Sell the Monet? The Age of Deaccessioning in Museums, ed. Julia Courtney, 107–129. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield., p. 123, n. 171.
Exhibitions
None