Condition
Part of the tail is missing. The flask is cracked. Heavy weathering gives the entire ensemble a brown and whitish coloring.
Description
Flask in the shape of a quadruped with spread legs, as in movement, with a basket on its back carrying a flask.
The flask has flaring, in-folded rim; short, wide neck; globular body; and concave bottom. The rim was pushed onto its upper surface, forming a groove that gives the impression of an applied thick coil around it.
The legs of the animal are fashioned from a single, originally rectangular, flattened mass of glass that was folded and bent at its four ends. Above that, a flattened discoid lump was applied and encircled by a flattened trail pinched in 12 places all around, on which the lower trail of the basket stands. The flask was then added onto this base, and the basket was formed around it. The basket consists of a two-tiered lattice: 12 turquoise folds make up the upper row, and 12 yellowish folds the lower. At that point, the neck, head, and the greenish ears were added. At the center of the animal’s belly, an annular pontil mark (W. 1.4, Th. 0.5 cm) is visible.
Comments and Comparanda
Many perfume vases of this type—representing a flask mounted on an animal—are preserved. They are usually referred to as camels, probably because of the long neck, although no sign of a haunch is rendered. In addition, these glass animals usually appear with curved elongated lumps of glass on the top of the head, which can easily be interpreted as long ears, identifying them thus with donkeys, a very widespread pack animal in that time and the region.
These vessels were made in Syrian and Mesopotamian workshops under Sassanian and Islamic rule (Jenkins, Marilyn. 1986. “Islamic Glass. A Brief History.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 44: 1–56., p. 11). Among published examples are the following: Lamm, Carl Johan. 1930. Mittelalterliche Gläser und Steinschnittarbeiten aus dem Nahen Osten, I–II. Forschungen zur islamischen Kunst 5. Berlin: D. Reimer., plates 20–21; Lamm, Carl Johan. 1931. “Les verres trouvés à Suse.” Syria 12: 358–367., pp. 361–362, fig. 77:4; von Saldern, Axel. 1968. Ancient Glass in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts., no. 64; Art in Glass: A Guide to the Glass Collections. 1969. Toledo: The Toledo Museum of Art., p. 36, three examples; von Saldern, Axel. 1980. Glas von der Antike bis zum Jugendstil: Sammlung Hans Cohn, Los Angeles/Cal. = Glass 500 B.C. to A.D. 1900: The Hans Cohn Collection, Los Angeles/Cal. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 180, no. 184; Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1980. Ancient Glass in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh. Pittsbourgh, PA: Carnegie Institute., pp. 128, 141, no. 244; Jenkins, Marilyn. 1986. “Islamic Glass. A Brief History.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 44: 1–56., p. 11, no. 1; Merrill, Nancy O. 1989. A Concise History of Glass Represented in the Chrysler Museum Glass Collection. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum Glass Collection., fig. 13; Pinder-Wilson, Ralph H. 1991. “The Islamic Lands and China.” In Five Thousand Years of Glass, ed. Hugh Tait, 112–143. London: British Museum Press., p. 122, no. 153; Carboni, Stefano. 2001. Glass from Islamic Lands: The Al-Sabah Collection. London: Thames & Hudson., pp. 24–25, nos. 4a–b; Carboni, Stefano, and David Whitehouse, eds. 2001. Glass of the Sultans, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art., pp. 112–113, nos. 29–30; Israeli, Yael. 2003. Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: The Eliahu Dobkin Collection and Other Gifts. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., p. 338, no. 441; Goldstein, Sidney M., J. M. Rogers, Melanie Gibson, and Jens Kröger. 2005. Glass: From Sasanian Antecedents to European Imitations. Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art 15. London: Nour Foundation., pp. 40, 41, nos. 18, 19; Caron, Beaudoin, and Eléni P. Zoïtopoúlou. 2008. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mediterranean Antiquities. The Ancient Glass / Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, La collection des antiquités méditerranéennes, La verrerie antique. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill., pp. 199–200, no. 188; Wright, Diane C., ed. 2017. Glass: Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum of Art. Seattle, WA: Chrysler Museum of Art., pp. 44–45, no. 6.
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. 256, no. 749.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)