Details

LOT 0045

Greek Silver Rhyton with Mythological Scenes and Glass Inlays

NORTH-EASTERN PONTIC AREA, 1ST-2ND CENTURY A.D.

10 1/2 in. (157 grams, 26.5 cm).

Comprising a conical body, a flat out-turned rim and a tubular spout with a ball-shaped terminal, made in two halves hammered over a relief matrix and then soldered together; the body divided into four horizontal registers separated by narrow bands in high-relief, the uppermost band formed as a stylised garland and the lower two ornamented with oblique notches; the upper register decorated with a bound garland of ivy weaving between applied cells filled with inlays of blue and red glass; the register below bearing a figural frieze with (from left to right, starting from the join): a tree with short branches and large leaves, a rider to the right, another tree, Athena moving to the left, wearing a Corinthian helmet, with an aegis on her breast and carrying a round shield and a spear, another tree, a rider moving to the left with the right hand stretched forward and upwards; the central lower register also decorated with a figural frieze: a swathed female figure standing with a sceptre in the right hand, a male figure turned to the left wearing a Corinthian helmet and carrying a spear, a bearded male figure wearing a chiton and himation with a phiale in the right hand, leaning on a vertical staff; the lower register decorated with elongated triangular leaves alternating with stemmed buds in relief, stamped with heart-shaped petals; the spout decorated with two zones of elongated lozenges stamped with ring-and-dot motifs and separated by an undecorated band; the ball terminal made in two halves with a soldered join disguised with a band of punched rings and dots; housed in a custom-made velvet-lined box.

Provenance

North European private collection, 1980s.
Private collection, acquired in 2005.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12763-237138.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Published

Masterpieces of Ancient Eurasian Art - Volume 1, 2008.

Literature

See Отчет археологической комиссии за 1909-1910 гг. (Ст. Петербург 1913), 215-216, fig. 246, for matrices found in the region of Tuapse.

Footnotes

Bronze matrices for such horns were found at the turn of the century in the vicinity of Tuapse on the eastern coast of the Black Sea; these are now kept in the Hermitage. While the style of the decoration suggests that the craftsman who made the matrices had a distant knowledge of the type of late Hellenistic ornament figured on objects of Parthian manufacture, its provincial presentation suggests that the matrices cannot have been made earlier than the 1st century A.D. The decoration of the tube finds a parallel on the tube of a silver-gilt rhyton of a similar construction with four decorative friezes on the horn, including the motifs, wide-spread in the art of the Roman Empire, such as amours carrying garlands, which was exhibited at the Christie’s in New York in 2003. A defining feature of this rhyton is the glass inlays in the upper two registers which are placed randomly, primarily in the upper field below the rim. Such inlaid cells were widely used on jewellery and vessels made of precious metals in the late Hellenistic period, as for example on the mounts and belt tabs from Zubov barrow no. 1 in the Kuban area. They were also employed in the 1st to 2nd centuries A.D. in the North Pontic area, and it seems possible that the matrices and the rhyton date to this period and were executed in a workshop located on the fringe of the Roman world. This is likely to have been one of the local workshops, whose products catered to the tastes of the populations of the foothills of the north-western Caucasus. The images of the deities represented on the rhyton are of considerable importance for understanding the culture and religious beliefs of the populations of this area.