411. Flask

Condition

Intact.

Description

Fire-polished rim; conical neck with a constriction at its base; sloping shoulders; six-sided, elongated body; flat bottom. On the bottom, an annular pontil scar (W. 1.3, Th. 0.2 cm) is visible. A small area at the bottom of two sides is rough and uneven. A marvered, opaque red thread is spirally wound 11 times from the bottom of the vessel to the tip of the rim and dragged upward nine times, forming unequal festoons. Along the upper half of one of the sides is a fold that was formed accidentally.

Comments and Comparanda

This six-sided flask, sloping toward the bottom, is quite similar to the group of flasks called “spearhead flasks” due to the pointed shape of the body; it is believed that they were used as containers for kohl (Brosh 1993, pp. 289–295). On spearhead flasks, see comments and comparanda cited in cat. 409, with various parallels dated from the seventh to the twelfth centuries. A four-sided parallel with threads in three colors, which is in the Kuwait National Museum, has been assigned to the Egyptian or Syrian region and is dated in the seventh–eighth centuries, as are two undecorated flasks of a very similar shape from the same collection dated in the ninth–tenth centuries (Carboni 2001, p. 297, no. 75b and p. 155, nos. 3.7a–b, respectively). Published examples of quite similar pointed flasks with a spirally wound thread in a striking color, but circular in cross section, include: Carnegie Museum of Natural History 25141 (Oliver 1980, p. 140, no. 241); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 18.273 (von Saldern 1968, no. 69); Musée Curtius, Liège, BAAR 1482 (Musée Curtius 1958, p. 91, no. 196); Newark Museum 50.1334 (Auth 1976, p. 174, no. 241); formerly the collection of R. W. Smith (Glass from the Ancient World 1957, p. 255, no. 515).

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. 253, no. 740.

Exhibitions

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