Hemispherical Bowl with Leaping Ibexes and Hares

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Hemispherical Bowl with Leaping Ibexes and Hares

Place of OriginProbably Iran

Dateabout 550-400 BCE

Dimensions3 × 4 × 4 in. (7.6 × 10.2 × 10.2 cm)
Rim: 4 in. (10.2 cm)

MediumSilver, hammered, with applied silver appliqués

ClassificationMetalwork

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, by exchange

Object number

2008.121

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02, Classic

DescriptionThe object is a hemispherical silver bowl, hammered from a single sheet. The exterior is decorated with four horizontal registers of small animal appliqués. These appliqués were not hammered from the bowl itself, but were formed separately over a matrix and then set into conforming spaces carved into the bowl's outer surface. The top register, located just below the rim, features a row of leaping ibexes. The three registers below it are densely filled with running hares. The base of the bowl is decorated with a twenty-two petalled rosette appliqué.

Label TextHammered out from a single sheet of silver, this drinking bowl is also decorated with applied silver cutouts of leaping ibexes and hares. Made to fit comfortably in the hand, such elegant bowls made of precious metals and decorated with hunting motifs would have been used by the elite governors (or satraps) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire—the largest empire the ancient world had yet seen, centering on what is now Iran and stretching from modern Turkey to India.Published ReferencesAntiquities, Christie's, New York, sale no. 2007, 4 June 2008, p. 89, lot 88.Comparative ReferencesCf. John Curtis and Nigel Tallis, eds., Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2005), p. 118, no. 111, British Museum hemispherical silver bowl from the Oxus Treasure, purchased in 1966, formerly in the Spencer-Churchill Collection (British Museum inv. MC 134740). See especially St John Simpson, Chapter 6, "The Royal Table," pp. 104-131; p. 109 fig. 49 shows a figure carrying a pair of hemispherical bowls in his hands.

Cf. Dorothea Arnold et al., Ancient Art from the Shumei Family Collection, exhibition catalogue (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996) 44-45, no. 17, hemispherical bowl with gold appliqués, Diam 3 ½ in. (9 cm), weight 197.4 g (Nancy Thomas).

Cf. John Curtis, Ancient Persia-1 (London, The British Museum Press, 2000) fig. 6.3, inv. ME 134740, hemispherical silver bowl with two rows of gold appliqué figures, Diam. 4 in. (10.3 cm), weight 188 g, inv. No. ANE 134740, part of the 5th-4th c. B.C. Oxus Treasure, discovered in 1877 in the region of Takht-i Kuwad, Tadjikistan (ancient Bactria), xxx objects bequeathed in 1897 by A.W. Franks to the British Museum.

Cf. John Boardman, Persia and the West: An Archaeological Investigation of the Genesis of Achaemenid Art (New York and London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), "Metalwork" pp. 184-194.Cf. Ilknur Özgen and Jean Öztürk et al., Heritage Recovered: The Lydian Treasure (Ankara: Ministry of Culture, 1996) no. 33, hemispherical silver bowl in the Lydian Treasure.

Cf. Ann C. Gunter and Paul Jett, Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1992) re shapes and decoration, and materials and methods of manufacture; no close comparisons.

Cf. Edith Porada, The Art of Ancient Iran: Pre-Islamic Cultures (New York: Crown Publishers, 1965) pp. 164-170 and pls. 48, 49, and 50 (ibexes).

Cf. Roman Ghirshman, The Arts of Ancient Iran: From its Origins to the Time of Alexander the Great (New York: Golden Press, 1964) pp. 243-275 "Achaemenian Persia: Sumptuary and Industrial Arts"