Skyphos Decorated with Vegetal Motifs in Relief

The main portion of this skyphos is decorated with large, low-relief ivy leaves, vines, and tendrils, with stylized clusters of spherical fruit and concentric circle decorations filling most of the available space. The ivy and the grape-like fruit reference the wine god Dionysos (Roman Bacchus). A band of concentric circles alternating with leaves borders the top of the decorative register, while low-relief bands appear at the top and bottom. The two ring handles are intact, and the volute-shaped thumb plates are mostly intact. Much of the green glaze of the exterior is covered with brown dirt accretions, and the matte interior of the bowl is more green than yellow but without obscuring accretions. The skyphos has a low ring foot.

The form and decoration of lead-glazed, mold-made vessels of the late Hellenistic to early Roman period may have been influenced by vessels made of metal, glass, and other ceramic relief wares. Sometimes linked to a type of ceramic vessel named in the Roman period “Rhosian ware” (rhosica vasa), the lead-glazed pottery vessels were made mostly in Tarsos, on the southeastern coast of Turkey, and elsewhere in Asia Minor, with the technology spreading to workshops in the Italian peninsula as well.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Dikran Kelekian, Paris and New York, [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [as from "near Aleppo"]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, by purchase, 1922; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.