449. Fragment of an Inlay with a Female Theater Mask

Condition

Complete; broken into two parts and mended; slight chipping on edges; some pinprick bubbles. Deformed by exposure to high temperature.

Description

Milky white half-mask of a female, set in an opaque turquoise ground. Vertical rows of locks rendered with tiny “black” spirals in purple ground; red and black vertical strands in three corkscrew locks on side of head to below the neck. Eyebrow, eyelid, eye, and nose finely outlined in black. Wide-open black mouth outlined in red. On the forehead is arranged a row of seven elongated, pointed purple strands of hair bangs. The back side is porous and full of burst pinprick bubbles.

Comments and Comparanda

On Pharaonic Egyptian glass inlays in general, see comments on cat. 442.

Incrustation with glass inlays predominantly on wooden objects is known in Egypt throughout the Late Pharaonic and Ptolemaic periods (see comments on cats. 442 and 448; also, for a thorough recent overview, see Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2011, pp. 350–395, esp. 350–353, 378; Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, pp. 376–385, 404–407, nos. 126–132, 146, 147; Auth 1999; Nenna 2002; Antonaras 2012, pp. 286–289, nos. 472–483). In the Augustan era, production of mosaic glass was transplanted from Egypt to Rome, and several new products appeared that imitated colorful types of marble, including finds from Rome and Patras, Greece (Capriata 2005, pp. 229–262; Kolonas 2002, p. 116, no. 17; Antonaras 2012, pp. 291–297, nos. 490–502). In addition, during the late first century BCE–early first century CE plaques with theatrical masks (cats. 449–451), deities (cat. 452), and floral compositions (cats. 460–461, cats. 464–479) became fashionable, the latter occasionally joined to form elongated bands (cats. 453–458), all of the them used in incrustation. They are dated in the last half of the first century BCE–early first century CE, and they were made in Egypt or in Rome. Sixteen different iconographical types are represented on these plaques with deities and theatrical masks: bull-Apis (cat. 452), Thoth-ibis (cat. 447), udjat-eyes, bird-Ba, falcons, panthers, Bes, Isis, Hathor, satyroi, silenoi, Dionysus (cat. 450), concubines (cat. 451), maenads, brother keeper, old servant. The most delicate and artistically adept products of ancient incrustation, they form a closely connected group that must have been products of one single center and made within a relatively short period of time (Mahnke 2008; Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2011, pp. 385–395).

Later on, mosaic glass vessels and glass incrustation became increasingly popular in Egypt and possibly in Rome as well, during the third through the fifth centuries CE, with published finds known from Rome, Ostia, Corinth, Kenchreai, and in Egypt proper, Fayum, and Antinoöpolis as well. On them were depicted simpler geometrical patterns and more often complex, colorful representations of maritime (cats. 496–498) and Nilotic scenes, figures of philosophers, and Christian iconographical themes as well (Becatti 1969; Ibrahim, Scranton, and Brill 1976, pp. 262–265; Brill and Whitehouse 1988; Nenna 2002; Auth 2007; Silvano 2012, p. 273, fig. 3, top; Rassart-Debergh and Weidmann 2013; Kiilerich 2014, pp. 179–181; Antonaras 2022a, pp. 30, 71–73). The tradition of using colorful glass plaques in opus sectile decoration continued in the Byzantine Empire, known in sixth-century basilicas and in Middle Byzantine–period (ninth–twelfth centuries) palaces (Antonaras 2013, p. 193, plate 13; Antonaras 2022b, pp. 196–197, figs. 1–3).

The earliest glass inlays that appeared in Egypt, from at least the middle of the second millennium BCE, were made of brightly colored glass (see cats. 442–446), and in the fourth century BCE mosaic canes were invented and introduced in inlays. Composite glass mosaic canes with miniature designs, such as rosettes and other floral motifs, checkers, imitations of stone with flakes or veins, masks, and deities, were made from bundled cold canes (e.g., cats. 96, 227, 486, 488, 491–493). The motif was formed on their inside and was visible only in transverse sections. Slices of these prefabricated mosaic canes together with monochrome canes were heated and lengthened repeatedly, each time rendering the design smaller. These sections with geometrical or floral motifs were used to form larger mosaic inlays (for a longer section of such a bar, see cat. 554). They were placed face down on a mold and fused together; often the space between them was filled with monochrome glass chips that formed the background against which the motifs would stand out. These larger plaques occasionally have a backing of scraps of mosaic glass that provided extra strength and leveled out the individual sections (cats. 114, 143, 460–462, 466–469, 473–475, 477, 480, 483, 489, 491, 494, and 501). Finally, the front side of the plaque, which was dull because of its contact with the mold, had to be ground and polished in order to make it shiny and the colors bright. For the production technique of glass mosaics, see Dawes 2002 and comments on cat. 86. On the trade of small fragments of mosaic glass in nineteenth century and on the entries that different techniques and classes of mosaic glass present in the Getty collection, see comments on cat. 95.

For comparanda, see 3000 Jahre Glaskunst, p. 11, no. 26; “Per-neb” Collection 1992, p. 12, lot no. 12; Newby 2006, p. 16, no. 9; Mahnke 2008, pp. 127–132, nos. 79–89, with prior bibliography.

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. 126, no. 335a; p. 120, plate no. 335a.

Mahnke 2008, p. 130, no. 84.

Exhibitions

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

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