549. Head Pendant

Condition

Suspension ring and part of the mouth are missing. The overall surface is corroded.

Description

Blue, rod-formed pendant in the shape of a bearded female head. The blue base mass renders the hair and the beard. A blob of yellow glass provides the skin of the face, pinched to form the nose, and two smaller ones the ears. The eyes are made of two overlapping disks of white and blue glass of gradually smaller diameters, allowing both to be visible. The mouth, now missing, was an applied oval white mass, tiny parts of which are still visible. Blue glass formed a suspension loop, now missing; only its base is still preserved.

No remains of coating are visible in the interior of the wide rod hole

Comments and Comparanda

On Punic glass pendants in general, see comments on cat. 544. Male heads represent the largest group among Punic head pendants. 2003.207 belongs to a subgroup of male heads with a twisted hairstyle and sleek beard (Seefried 1982, p. 27, 96, plate I, type B.III), dated between the sixth and the fourth centuries BCE.

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

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 83, no. 225; p. 82, plate no. 225.

Seefried 1982, p. 96, no. 15.

Wight 2011, pp. 102, 107, fig. 74.

Exhibitions

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