LOT 0094

Eastern Greek Parcel-Gilt Bowl with Inscription

HELLENISTIC, LATE 2ND-EARLY 1ST CENTURY B.C.

8 1/8 in. (413 grams, 20.6 cm wide).

Broad and shallow with thick rolled rim; parcel-gilt band to the inner face below the rim of running scrolls on a pounced field; to the centre, a hexafoil reserved on a pounced field with border of running scrolls; pointillé cursive Aramaic inscription to the outer face.

Private collection, London, 1990s or earlier.
with Gorny & Mosch, 22 June 2007, no.37.
with Christie's, New York, 5 December 2012, no.52.

Accompanied by copies of the relevant Gorny & Mosch and Christie's catalogue pages.
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 search certificate number no.13217-250131.

Cf. Pfrommer, M., Metalwork from the Hellenized East: Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1993, figs.18 (see also a similar specimen in the British Museum, no.inv.134303) and pp.21ff and 140ff, for general discussion and parallels; Maierovskii III Burial-mound no. 4/2002, Burial no. 3B, Moscow, State Historical Museum, inv. no. 112873, list Б 2078/77, in Treister, M., 'Parthian and Early Sasanian “Imports” in the Burials of the Nomads of Eastern Europe (2nd Century BCE-3rd Century CE)' in Choref, M.M., Materials in Archaeology and History of Ancient and Medieval Crimea, Moscow, 2018, pp.118-210, fig.4, 1-3, for a bowl with very similar ornaments; Ebbinghaus, S., Feasting with gods, heroes, and kings, Cambridge, 2019, for discussion and sources of Hellenistic and Parthian vessels.

The bowl is related to a large group of Hellenistic silver vessels of similar shape, some with Aramaic inscriptions on the exterior beneath the rim, all thought to be of eastern origin, produced within the Seleucid Empire. Here, the Aramaic inscription, now mostly unreadable, reports the name of the maker and the weight of the bowl as 118 zuzim.