433. Miniature Jar

Condition

Intact. There is a little weathering, mostly on the zigzag thread.

Description

Fire-polished, flaring rim, constricted at the transition to the squat globular body, standing on a slightly convex bottom. A circular scar of a solid pontil (W. 0.6 × 0.4 cm) is visible at the center of the bottom.

The vessel is decorated with a thick coil comprising marbled red, turquoise, and white threads brought around the body in a zigzag pattern (eight times) and around the rim.

Comments and Comparanda

Similar vessels with thick, unmarvered coil are rare but known: a small bottle made of the same translucent olive-green glass decorated with an opaque red thread dated to the seventh–eighth centuries CE, ascribed to a Syrian workshop (Carboni 2001, p. 41, no. 1.7b); and a flask that is similar in craftmanship, with applied thick coils, dated to the fifth–seventh centuries and ascribed to an Islamic workshop (Musée Curtius 1958, pp. 97–98, no. 212). Very similar thick, globular jars with marvered red and white threads are known from various collections, dated between the fifth and eighth centuries, ascribed to Syro-Palestinian workshops (Oliver 1980, p. 139, no. 240; Platz-Horster 1976, no. 185; von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 128, no. 388; Goldstein et al. 2005, pp. 42–43, no. 22; Whitehouse 2001a, pp. 212–213, nos. 778). See also comments on cat. 306.

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. 247, no. 721.

Exhibitions

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