Skyphos Decorated with Grape Vines in Relief

The decorative register of this skyphos is almost completely covered by curling grape vines, leaves, and bunches, rendered in highly naturalistic style with varied size of the leaves. The grape vines reference the wine god Dionysos (Roman Bacchus). The two ring handles are intact, as are the volute-shaped thumb plates with sharply raised edges above them. The lustrous bright and dark green glaze of the exterior is covered by brown accretions, particularly in the areas of low relief, while the interior of the vessel is a matte yellow and intact. Drips of the thick green glaze are visible on the irregular, low ring foot, and there are three evenly spaced drips or knobs on the bottom of the foot. This skyphos may have been reassembled from fragments, possibly indicated by the discolored lines on the body.

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 "between Aleppo and Jerusalem"]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, by purchase, 1914; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.