Byzantine Terracotta Sgrafitto Dish with a Falcon Among Leafy Branches

PERHAPS CORINTH, MID-12TH CENTURY A.D.

10 3/8 in. (1.04 kg, 26.3 cm).

Broad and squat with carination to the exterior face, and a broad foot ring; cream glaze with sgraffito design of a delineated falcon in profile, surrounded by leafy branches and holding one of the branches in its hooked beak. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Private collection (L.v.L.), Rhineland-Pfalz, Germany, acquired between 1960s-1980s.

Footnotes

In the Byzantine Empire, and even more so in the Islamic world, hunting falcons were a symbol of wealth and high status. The spectrum of designs in which they are to be found on 12th-century Byzantine pottery, in particular, offers a forceful testament both to the cultural reach of such vessels during the period and to the skill of the potters who were able to produce large numbers of beautifully worked slipware vessels destined for marine trade. The present example is likely to have been discovered in the late 1960's, when it is thought a 12th-century shipwreck laden with slipware vessels was excavated off the coast of Izmir.

CONDITION

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LOT 1489