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Details
LOT 0459
Coptic Marble Liturgical Vessel Fragment with Inscription
6TH CENTURY A.D.
2 1/8 in. (87 grams, 55 mm).
Tongue-shaped with low rounded pad on the underside, raised edge with low-relief decoration of grape vines and leaves, the edge with pairs of opposing doves eating grapes; dedicatory Demotic inscription on the underside.
Provenance
Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12575-232108.
Literature
See Atalla, N.S., Coptic Art, Sculptures, Architecture, L'Art Copte, II, Cairo, 1989, figs. pp.109ff., for similar carved interlaces; Rutschowscaya, M.H., Benazeth, D., L’Art Copte en Égypte, 2000 ans de Christianisme, Paris, 2000, figs.109-118; Poupaki, E., ‘Early Byzantine Marble Vases from Kos Island, Dodecanese, Greece’ in Diamanti, C., Vassiliou A. (eds.), Eν Σοφίᾳ μαθητεύσαντες, Essays in Byzantine Material Culture and Society in Honour of Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, Oxford, 2019, figs.2-3, for a possible parallel.
Footnotes
These vessels were used as liturgical objects for church offerings or ritual, and were extensively employed from late antiquity in ecclesiastical contexts.
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LOT 0459
Coptic Marble Liturgical Vessel Fragment with Inscription
Estimate £1,500 - 2,000€1,740 - 2,320 (for guidance only)$2,030 - 2,700 (for guidance only)
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