LOT 0219

Achaemenid Silver Phiale with Central Rosette

5TH CENTURY B.C.

5 3/8 in. (240 grams, 13.7 cm wide).

Squat lotiform bowl with wide everted rim, central domed mesomphalos with rosette detailing, some restoration to the rim; with custom-made box.

Ex London, UK gallery, 1971-early 2000s.
Private collection, London, UK.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.13067-248447.

Cf. Mahboubian, Art of Ancient Iran: Copper and Bronze, London, 1997, no.321, p.247; cf. also similar vessel in MET, inventory no.47.100.84, in Colburn, H.P., ‘Ernst Herzfeld, Joseph Upton, and the Artaxerxes Phialai’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal 55, New York, 2020, pp.113-119, fig.1.

This bowl is possibly part of a set of nearly identical vessels, probably used at the table of a high-status household, potentially that of a satrap. Persian governors (satrapes) used banquets to display their wealth and power by imitating royal banquets. It was a great honour for them to receive a drinking vessel such as this as a gift from the King of the Kings, thereby establishing their status as royal dinner guests. No doubt it took practice to drink adeptly from a vessel like this, yet the omphalos in the base would have made it easier to hold with one hand, with the middle finger hooked inside the indentation and the thumb stretched out to grip the vessel at or near the rim.