Condition
Fragment; broken all around.
Description
Rectangular inlay, broken on both ends. Front and back sides flat. The design extends through the thickness of the plaque.
Partly preserved lotus flower and a palmette. On white ground, a frieze of alternating lotus flowers and palmettes, that is, the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. White and red, six-petaled palmette outlined in dark blue; stems from a red calyx-shaped pod. Below the pod two opposing blue tendrils. Open flower of a blue lotus, with pointed, dark blue external petals, and yellow with red top, upright, calyx-shaped petals at the center; stems from a red calyx-shaped pod. Below the pod are two opposing blue tendrils.
Comments and Comparanda
For the historical and technological evolution of glass inlays in Pharaonic Egypt and the Roman Empire, see comments on cat. 449.
For palmettes, 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., pp. 362, 364, nos. 628, 641. For lotus, see Ancient Glass: The Bomford Collection of Pre-Roman and Roman Glass on Loan to the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. 1976. Bristol: Museum and Art Gallery., p. 16, no. 24; 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., p. 394, no. 138; Glass from the Ancient World: The Ray Winfield Smith Collection. 1957. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass in the Corning Glass Center., no. 119; Spaer, Maud. 2001. Ancient Glass in the Israel Museum: Beads and Other Small Objects. Jerusalem: Israel Museum., p. 250, nos. 608–609. For lotus and palmette bands: Goldstein, Sidney M. 1979. Pre-Roman and Early Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glas., p. 222, no. 644; Bianchi, Robert Steven. 2002. “Ancient Glass from the Cultural Perspective of Ancient Egypt.” In Reflections on Ancient Glass from the Borowski Collection, Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem, ed. Robert Steven Bianchi, Birgit Schlick-Nolte, G. Max Bernheimer, and Dan Barag, 111–156. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 152, no. EG-36; Ancient Glass / Kodai garasu. 2001. Shigaraki: Miho Museum., pp. 81, 201, no. 113 (where the one on the lower row is identical to 2003.262).
Provenance
Pierre Mavrogordato, Greek, 1870–1948 (Berlin, Germany); 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. 126, no. 336d; p. 121, plate 336d.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)