Condition
Intact, with very few abrasions and scratches. Reddish remains of the core in the interior. Vertical indentations on the body caused by the tooling of the zigzags.
Description
Translucent dark blue body; opaque yellow and turquoise decoration. Broad, inward-sloping rim-disk; cylindrical neck; obtuse-angled shoulder; almost spherical body; convex bottom. Two dark blue ring handles with knobbed tails extend from the lower part of the neck to the shoulder.
An unmarvered opaque yellow thread is wound around the rim. A marvered yellow thread starts on the shoulders, spirals eight times around the upper body, where a marvered opaque turquoise thread is wound three times, and they are both dragged up and down, forming a zigzag pattern. Below this a yellow and a marvered turquoise thread are wound horizontally once around the body.
Comments and Comparanda
The aryballos was one of the ceramic vessel forms that was rendered in glass with core-forming after the sixth century BCE, when this technique, known in Mesopotamia and Egypt since the middle of the second millennium BCE, was introduced in the Aegean world. In addition to aryballoi, amphoriskoi (small amphorae), alabastra, and oinochoiskai (juglets) were imitated in core-formed glass. It is believed that they functioned as unguentaria, intended for aromatic and cosmetic substances (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.; McClellan, Murray. 1984. “Core-Formed Glass from Dated Contexts.” PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.; 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. 109–125; 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. 37–44).
This aryballos belongs to the earliest group of Aegean core-formed vessels, dating from the middle of the sixth to the end of the fifth century BCE (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. 58–99; 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. 110–115), made either of blue glass and decorated with white, yellow, and turquoise threads or of milky white glass decorated with purple threads. Vessels of this group have been found in great numbers in Rhodes, Macedonia, the Aegean islands, and Italy. For the classification of this particular aryballos, 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 I:B, form I:1A: p. 151, no. 119.
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. 64, no. 145; p. 53, plate no. 145.
Exhibitions
Molten Color: Glassmaking in Antiquity (Malibu, 2005–2006; 2007; 2009–2010)
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)