LOT 0770

Roman Bronze Patera with Handle

1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

15 1/2 in. (483 grams, 39.5 cm).

The bowl with a wide flat bottom and convex sides; the inside with incised concentric circles; flat handle with raised edges and hooked finial for suspension.

German private collection, Mr O., collecting in the 1950s-1960s; thence by descent.
with Bonhams, London, 7 July 2016, lot 191 (£3,000-5,000).

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
Accompanied by copies of the relevant Bonhams printed catalogue pages (full page).
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11735-201189.

Exhibited at the Harwich Museum, Harwich, Essex, UK, 19th June-9th September 2024; accompanied by a copy of a photograph of the artefact on display.

Cf. Tassinari, S., La vaiselle de bronze, Romaine et Provinciale, au musée des antiquités nationales, Paris, 1975, fig.1, for a similar pan; for 1st century B.C.-1st century A.D. types see Willers, H., Neue Untersuchungen über die römische Bronze Industrie von Capua und von Niedergermanien, Hannover und Leipzig, 1907; Eggers, H.J., Der römische Import in freien Germanien, Hamburg, 1951, type 130; and the famous Aylesford specimen in Evans, A.J., ‘On a Late-Celtic Urn-Field at Aylesford, Kent, and on the Gaulish, Illyro-Italic, and Classical Connexions of the Forms of Pottery and Bronze-work there discovered’, in Archeologia, 2nd Series, Vol.52, London, 1890, pp.315-388; Cunliffe, B., Iron Age Communities in Britain, London, 2005, pp.152-9.

This vessel was part of Roman and provincial bronze instrumentum domesticum, i.e. culinary or domestic utility ware. Such cooking vessels are rare: some are found in central and northern Italy, in Pannonia, Germany and in Britain. The Aylesford Pan, today in the British Museum (inventory no.1886.1112.1), is one of the most important finds. This specimen (Eggers type 130), probably pre-Caesarian or Caesarian, was found in a grave together with a Celtic bucket and a jug.