496. Fragment of a Mosaic Inlay with Maritime Motif

Condition

Fragment, broken all around. The surface is slightly pitted.

Description

The head and upper body of a multicolored fish appear against a turquoise background. All the colorful elements of the motif are a form of incrustation (Th. approx. 1 mm), set in the turquoise ground (Th. 2 cm) of the plaque. Originally the decoration was thicker too, but it was polished, probably in antiquity, as the pitting on the front surface indicates. Most probably the multicolored features of the fish were arranged on a surface and then the turquoise layer was applied over them. The back side is anomalous, uneven and rough, with elongated indentations, tooling marks of the production procedure.

The lower part of the fish is turquoise and outlined with a white band. The upper part has also green areas and is outlined with dark blue. A vertical wavy band of three red and two thinner dark green stripes indicate the gill slits. A wide white band delineates either the end of the head or some striping of the actual fish species rendered on the plaque. The fins are very long, and they are made of a series of wider green and fine dark green, yellow, and red stripes, outlined with a fine red stripe. The eye is made of a wide green oval with a small white triangle, which renders the reflection of the light in the pupil, surrounded with fine yellow and red rings.

Comments and Comparanda

For the historical and technological evolution of glass inlays in Pharaonic Egypt and the Roman Empire, see comments on cats. 449 and 460.

The fish most resembles the yellowfin tuna in the colors of the body and the fins, in addition to their characteristic elongated form and the shape of the head. This species has its habitat in the Atlantic Ocean; there are other species of tuna that migrate in the Mediterranean, especially bluefin tuna, which is known to have been fished from prehistoric times and in a more organized fashion at least from the sixth century BCE by Phoenicians on the Atlantic and in the western Mediterranean and by Greeks in the Black Sea, even appearing on third- and second-century BCE coins minted in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, showing the economic importance of this trade in that period (Mastromarco 1988; Curtis 2005; Pepe 2006; Di Natale 2012; Di Natale 2014).

Fragments of several inlay plaques and plates with fish motifs are known, apparently products of a specialized workshop; it has even been proposed that they were sold as half-finished products for use by glassworkers and other artisans (Weinberg and Stern 2009, p. 86). Published parallels include the following: finds from Athenian Agora, dated around the middle of the third century CE (Weinberg 1962, pp. 29–36; Brill 1962, pp. 37–48; Weinberg and Stern 2009, pp. 84–86, no. 153); Corinth, dated in the third century CE (Williams and Zervos 1982, pp. 133–134, plates 42a, 43; Oliver 2001; Antonaras 2022a, pp. 71–73, no. 447); Rimini, dated in the third century CE (Ortalli 2000, pp. 516, 519–520, no. 183); Narbone, dated in the third century CE (Feugère 2001, pp. 15–16, fig. 5); Lechaion (Ibrahim, Scranton, and Brill 1976, panels 16–17, pp. 72, 86, figs. 31, 87, 88, 91, 92). Other, unprovenanced finds are in museum and private collections: the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Fitzwilliam 1978, p. 28, no 43); Corning Museum of Glass (Goldstein 1979, pp. 195–196, 264–265, nos. 532, 533, 792–796, color plates 29, 35, 36); formerly in the Kofler-Truniger Collection (Christie’s 1985, p. 118, no. 226, color ill.); Toledo Museum of Art (Grose 1989, pp. 367–368, nos. 654–656); Württembergisches Museum Stuttgart (Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, pp. 408–409, no. 148); Borowski Collection (Bianchi 2002, p. 154 nos. EG-39a–c); Metropolitan Museum of Art (17.194.1504a–d: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/250145; 10.130.2692: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/570436; 26.7.1199: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551563).

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. 337.

Exhibitions

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