Condition
Mended. Pitting on the surface, more visible on the decoration; weathering on the ground areas.
Description
Translucent dark blue ground; white and yellow décor. Flat, horizontal rim; cylindrical neck; oval body; pointed bottom on a tall, conical, outward-splayed base. On the shoulders are two dark blue horizontal loop handles.
A marvered white thread spirally wound four times on the lower part of the neck continues with eight revolutions on the upper part of the body, where it is flanked by five coils of a marvered yellow thread, and ends with five more coils on the lower body. The decoration on the upper body is dragged upward, forming a zigzag pattern. This tooling resulted in vertical ribbing on the body.
Comments and Comparanda
Double-handled unguentaria along with hydriskai, jars, and lentoid aryballoi are a new vessel form, ascribed to the second, far rarer group II of Mediterranean core-formed vessels. This group appears late in the fourth century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic era (fourth–first centuries BCE), and dominated the market until the first or second quarter of the third century. New production centers operated then, probably in Italy and mainland Greece, possibly Macedonia. New decorative patterns replaced the old zigzags with festoons and feather patterns (Harden, Donald B. 1981. Catalogue of Greek and Roman Glass in the British Museum, vol. 1: Core- and Rod-Formed Vessels and Pendants and Mycenean Cast Objects. London: British Museum., pp. 100–121; McClellan, Murray. 1984. “Core-Formed Glass from Dated Contexts.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia., pp. 77–126; Grose, David Frederick. 1989. Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50. New York: Hudson Hills Press., pp. 115–122; Stern, Eva Marianne, and Birgit Schlick–Nolte. 1994. Early Glass of the Ancient World, 1600 B.C.–A.D. 50: Ernesto Wolf Collection. Ostfildern: Gerd Hatje., pp. 38–39). For the classification of this particular vessel, see Grose, David Frederick. 1989. Early Ancient Glass: Core-Formed, Rod-Formed, and Cast Vessels and Objects from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Roman Empire, 1600 B.C. to A.D. 50. New York: Hudson Hills Press., class II:G, unguentarium form II:1, pp. 121–122; Harden, Donald B. 1981. Catalogue of Greek and Roman Glass in the British Museum, vol. 1: Core- and Rod-Formed Vessels and Pendants and Mycenean Cast Objects. London: British Museum., pp. 135–137, nos. 372–373.
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. 81, no. 218; p. 61, plate no. 218.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)