575. Head of a Bearded Man

Condition

Severely weathered. The lower part of the head, below the lips, is missing. Surface is covered with brownish accretions and green patina.

Description

Miniature head of a bearded man. Hair rendered with eight parallel, horizontal tiers divided by vertical grooves, each one indicating a lock. The man has a rope-shaped band on his head. Two oblique grooves below the band on the back of the head may be interpreted as ends of the band hanging down, if they are not remnants of broken-off pieces. His facial features consist of wide forehead, pronounced eyebrows, oval eyes, wide and short nose, and full upper lip.

The seams of the mold are very well concealed, although possibly visible in the area behind the ears, particularly on the left side of the head.

Comments and Comparanda

The rope-shaped band the man wears is a strophion, a symbol of priesthood, worn also by rulers, athletes, and gods such as Aesculapius (Bieber 1931; Krug 1968, pp. 41–47, 102–106, 128–130, 137–138, type 12). The head bears prosopographic features, like the rendering of the moustache, that resemble a portrait, and the original maybe from the Hellenistic era. For a dark blue glass portrait bust of Augustus dated in the second or third decade of the first century CE, see Doppelfeld 1966, pp. 7–11, plate 1–6; Harden et al. 1987, pp. 21–22, no. 1. For a dark blue glass miniature male bust identified as one of the Tetrarchs, and one of a prince, dated in the late third–early fourth century CE and the first half of the fourth century CE, respectively, see La Baume 1973, H 8, plate 46.1; Glass from the Ancient World 1957, p. 115, no. 190; Harden et al. 1987, pp. 23–24, nos. 3–4.

The goddess Aphrodite has also been rendered in translucent greenish glass, in a piece dated in the second century CE (von Saldern 1968, no. 28; Glass from the Ancient World 1957, pp. 112–113, no. 188; Harden et al. 1987, p. 29, no. 7).

A male head in red glass, much simpler in execution, dated to the first half of the fourth century is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (17.194.1474: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/250141; Froehner 1903, no. 257, p. 45, plate 31.6–7).

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. 193, no. 528a.

Exhibitions

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