63. Bowl

Condition

The vessel is fully preserved, with some minor abrasions and nicks. There are three small cracks at the lip.

Description

Bowl with horizontal rim with rounded edge, spreading slightly downward; shallow hemispherical body with convex curving sides; convex bottom. On the rim are “chatter marks,” that is, signs of concentric circles that regularly appear on rotary pressed vessels of decolorized glass (Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, figs. 47–48; Ignatiadou 2013, p. 59, fig. 18).

Comments and Comparanda

This bowl 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, in southern Italy, the ancient Canusium (for an overview on Canosa Group vessels, see Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, 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 (cat. 62) (Oliver 1968, pp. 48–55; Grose 1989, 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 and Schlick-Nolte 1994, pp. 100–102). This particular bowl was made of decolorized glass by chip casting or by sagging over a former mold (Lierke 2009, pp. 27–29; Stern and Schlick-Nolte 1994, pp. 49–53, 110–111). It is one of a very small group of bowls that were supplemented with a lid shaped like a shallow dish with a flat bottom and a wide rim with a short overhang (Stern 1999b, pp. 33–41, 46–50; Ignatiadou 2013, pp. 141–150). These lidded glass bowls have been connected to the term “exaleiptra” among the precious vessels recorded in treasures of Athenian temples (Stern 1999b, p. 35). The closest parallel, dated to the third century BCE, is of unknown provenance, and is held in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf (Ricke 1989, p. 19, no. 6; Stern 1999b, p. 49, no. 10, fig. 13). Relatively similar lidded bowls with painted and gilded lids have been unearthed in Macedonia (Ignatiadou 2000, pp. 35–36), reportedly on the Black Sea coast (Kunina 1997, pp. 12, 289–290, no. 18, plate 13; Stern 1999b, pp. 46–47, no. 1, fig. 22), Italy, and Egypt (Arveiller-Dulong and Nenna 2011, pp. 170–172, nos. 198–201), all of them dated to the fourth and third centuries 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

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 93, no. 243.

Exhibitions

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