Malcolm Jones, Sheffield University, Dept. English Language & Linguistics, Senior Lecturer 1994-2009 and advisor to the British Museum and Portable Antiquities Scheme, says: "An important 'Hanseatic' bowl, closely related to similar examples in the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum, New York"; the central figure, though unlabelled, and seemingly a male head, is perhaps intended as Superbia [Pride] – as on both the Cleveland and Metropolitan Museum bowls, here it is surrounded by three fellow Vices, named as IDOLATRIA [Idolatry], a female head; INVIDIA [Envy] and IRA [Wrath], both male heads (The Cleveland bowl adds a fourth head, LUXURIA [Lust]), here within the central medallion, around the top, is inscribed SUPBERIA [sic], and on a band around the central medallion HAC RADICE MALA NACITUR OMNE MALUM (Pride is the root from which all the other Vices are born), within each oval around the central medallion, flanking the figure [of Superbia] are five Vices named as IDOLATRIA, INVIDIA, IRA, LUXURIA, and LIBIDO, around the outer border the Vices are anatomised into the following triads: MALICIA, VANA, GLORIA; EBRIETAS, CRAPULA, FRAUS; EMULATIO, CONTENTO, AMBICIO; SUSPICIO, CONTENTO, AMBICIO; and COGITATO, PICRICIA VANA, GLORIA DESPERATIO.

PROVENANCE:
From the family collection of a London gentleman; formed in the late 1940s-1950s; thence by descent. Accompanied by a report of metallurgic analytical results, written by Metallurgist Dr. Brian Gilmour of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford.

LITERATURE:
See Weitzmann-Fiedler, J. Romanische gravierte Bronzeschalen, Berlin, 1981, a corpus of all known such bowls at that date; more recently, Cohen, Adam S & Safran, Linda "Learning from Romanesque bronze bowls" in Word and Image 22 (2006), 211-8 (proposing a pedagogical function for these bowls); also see similar sold Herman Historica, Germany, Auction 74aw, Thursday, 27 April 2017, lot 2117, sold for 37,000 euros; accompanied by a print out of the auction listing and images of other similar bowls known.

FOOTNOTES:
So-called "Hanseatic" bowls are a group of bronze vessels with Romanesque ornament, primarily associated with ports in the Hanseatic league and with marine archaeological sites. They are often mentioned in medieval documents, where they are referred to as bacina, pelves, or pelvicula. The majority of these bowls—which date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—have been found in the cultural area that extends from the Baltic down to the Lower Rhine district and across to England. Because this area was once dominated by the Hanseatic League (a commercial association of free towns), the basins are known as Hanseatic bowls, though the putative link to the Hanseatic league is no longer considered correct but the name is retained for convenience.

They are round, some being more convex than others; and the inside is engraved with scenes from classical mythology, with themes from the Old and New Testaments and the legends of the saints, or with allegorical figures personifying the virtues and the vices, the liberal arts, the seasons, and so on. Hanseatic bowls were probably made in the bronze-casting centres where candlesticks and aquamaniles (and indeed all medieval cast bronze) were made: in the Meuse district and Lorraine, in Lower Saxony and the Harz Mountains, and also in England. The decoration on these bowls may have been added elsewhere.