4. Lentoid Flask

Condition

Mended; parts of the thread on the rim are missing. Reddish remains of the core in the interior.

Description

Translucent dark blue ground; opaque yellow and green decoration. A flattened coil forms a rudimentary uneven rim-disk; cylindrical neck, tapering toward the body; lentoid body. Two green loop handles extend from lower neck to the shoulder.

An unmarvered yellow thread is wound around the rim. One yellow and one green thread—both marvered—are spirally wound 4 times around the body and dragged up and down 12 times to form a loosely rendered feathered pattern.

Comments and Comparanda

The translucent, dark blue base color is typical of the Ramesside period (Nineteenth–Twentieth Dynasties; 1292–1070), as is the large green and yellow feather décor of the body. From the glass workshop in Lisht (Egypt), numerous fragments of thick-walled, squat vessels confirm the dating (Nolte 1968, workshop 5, pp. 121–126, form VII, pp. 172–173, wherein several parallels are cited). The vessel is one of the last thread-decorated glasses in Egypt of excellent quality. Cf. Nolte 1968, p. 121, plate XXI:11, similar feather decoration in yellow and white; XXI:22, a small vessel of a similar shape with yellow and green thread decoration and greenish handles. Also cf. Metropolitan Museum of Art turquoise body, blue, white, and yellow threads 30.8.179 [ca. 1295–1070 BCE]: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/569296.

Provenance

By 1974, Gawain McKinley Ltd. (London, England); 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, pp. 18–19, no. 5; p. 20, plate no. 5.

McKinley 1974, p. 2, ill.

JGS 1977, p. 169, no. 1, ill.

Exhibitions

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

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