LOT 0110

Lydian Silver Ribbed Jug with Spout and Handle

ARCHAIC, 6TH CENTURY B.C.

5 1/2 in. (211 grams, 14 cm).

Comprising a squat body with a median band of vertical ribbing, a short neck with a broad flared rim, and a thickened outer rim, a flared foot; fluted strap handle and a U-section spout flared at the outer end.

UK private collection before 2000.
Acquired on the UK art market.
Private collection, London, UK.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13266-253452.

Cf. for a similar example in terracotta the Metropolitan Museum, inv.no.14.30.9, in Various, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, January, 1968, New York, January, 1968, p.199.

This jug can plausibly be placed in the Lydian world of western Anatolia during the Archaic period, when Lydia stood at the crossroads of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. Far from being culturally isolated, Lydia was deeply involved in the exchange of artistic forms, luxury materials, and metalworking traditions that moved across the eastern Mediterranean in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. The attribution, therefore, suggests more than geography alone: it points to a wealthy and outward-looking culture in which prestige objects in precious metal carried both social and economic weight. Silver was especially important in this period. Before coinage became widespread, it functioned as a recognised store of value and circulated in weighed forms across the Mediterranean and Near East. In Lydia, its importance is sharpened by the region’s close association with the early history of coinage: ancient sources and modern scholarship alike connect the Lydians with the development of some of the earliest coined money, first in electrum and soon after in distinct gold and silver issues. A vessel such as this would therefore have been more than a practical object. Its material alone marked it as a possession of consequence, while its workmanship placed it firmly within the culture of elite display.