LOT 0226

Mesopotamian Steatite Bowl with Animals and Palm Trees

3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.

9 5/8 in. (5.3 kg, 24.5 cm wide).

Drum-shaped steatite vessel with broad flat rim; low-relief frieze to the outer face: dense vegetation panels with hatched treetrunks and fronds, resting quadrupeds, each with the legs folded beneath the body.

Acquired by a Swiss family in the mid-1980s to late 1990s, thence by descent.
Private collection, Switzerland, 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 search certificate number no.13026-246787.

Cf. Aruz, J. ed., Art Of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003, p.326, for similar.

In Mesopotamia ancient stone-carvers produced a variety of vessels from soft soapstone (steatite) and pale yellow alabaster, along with jewellery. They include cylindrical boxes, cups, high open-rim vases and a few globular jars. Among it the most prominent products were the cups with tall, slender stalks, apparently intended for religious purposes. The repertoire of motifs of the ‘Intercultural Style’ includes vegetal, architectural, and abstract or naturalistic representations of people and animals, depicted in a carved and inlaid technique.