Skyphos Decorated with Cupids in Relief

Winged Erotes (Cupids) holding instruments stand within garlands in the form of arches on this lead-glazed relief skyphos. The arches are separated by single leaves at the top and bottom, and the scene is framed by raised bands at the top and bottom. The two ring handles are intact, as are the volute-shaped thumb plates above them. The lustrous bright and dark green glaze of the exterior is covered in a few locations by brown accretions, while the interior of the vessel is bright yellow and intact. 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. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

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