Condition
Intact, with some areas of iridescence. There are a few minor nicks and scratches. The body, both interior and exterior, is covered with circular scratches.
Description
Bowl with a slightly flared, uneven lip. The rim is accentuated in the interior with a fine groove running 0.3 cm below the lip. At the center of the tiny resting surface is one dot, surrounded by a thick ring, which is encircled by a fine, thin ring.
Comments and Comparanda
No exact parallels have been noted. The bowl, however, belongs to a group of high-quality Hellenistic tableware vessels, predominantly plates, hemispherical bowls—sometimes footed or finned (e.g., cat. 64)—and skyphoi found in burials in Canosa, the ancient Canusium in southern Italy (for an overview of Canosa Group vessels, see 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. 97–115). The vessels belong to two main groups: Millefiori Mosaic Glass and Cast Monochrome Tablewares, the latter made of decolorized, occasionally gilded glass or of strongly colored deep blue and light blue or purple glass (Oliver, Andrew, Jr. 1968. “Millefiori Glass in Classical Antiquity.” Journal of Glass Studies 10: 48–70., pp. 48–55; 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. 185–189). Occasionally they were decorated with lathe-cut bands or grooves, or gilding; a very few had gold-leaf designs set between two fine colorless bowls in a sandwich gold-glass technique. They have been dated between the late third and the late second century BCE, although individual vessels of all hoards range from the late third to the late first century BCE (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. 100–102). This particular bowl was made of heavily colored glass by chip casting (Lierke, Rosemarie. 2009. Die nicht-geblasenen antiken Glasgefäße / The Non-Blown Ancient Glass Vessels. Offenbach: Deutsche Glastechnische Gesellschaft., pp. 27–29; 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. 49–53, 110–111).
Relatively similar (in respect to the flanged rim and the groove along the rim) are footed bowls made of decolorized glass, although admittedly having a more conical body shape (see 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. 102–104, figs. 177, 189–191, also pp. 256–259, nos. 67–68), all of them dated to the second or perhaps to the first century BCE.
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. 94, no. 248; p. 96, plate no. 248.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)