Banqueting Plate with Vine Scroll and Birds

Place of OriginIran

Date6th-7th century

Dimensions1 3/4 × 8 1/8 in. (4.4 × 20.6 cm)

MediumCast silver with engraved and chased details

ClassificationMetalwork

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

Object number

1949.35

Not on View

DescriptionA shallow silver plate with a plain foot-ring, cast in relief and finished with engraving and chasing. The central design features an elaborate vine scroll pattern emerging from a single trunk, flanked by three-lobed mountain forms and a symbolic lake. Six birds—three ducks and three pheasants—inhabit the vine coils. No inscription is present. The entire surface shows evidence of even working and careful detailing, with remnants of ancient corrosion near the foot-ring.

Label TextThis Sasanian silver plate is decorated with a swirling grapevine emerging from a pruned trunk beside stylized mountains and a lake. Six birds nest among the scrolls, including ducks and pheasants. The image reflects themes of fertility, abundance, and elite leisure in late antique Persia. Cast and engraved with remarkable care, the plate likely came from a royal workshop. It was used in ceremonial contexts such as courtly banquets (bazm), where symbolic imagery and luxury materials affirmed elite status. This object, the museum’s earliest Sasanian silver acquisition, complements the more recent 2022.11 plate, offering a view of both symbolic and figural traditions in late Sasanian metalwork from modern-day Iran.Published ReferencesPope, Arthur Upham, and Phyllis Ackermann, "An Unpublished Sassanian Silver Dish," Bulletin of the Iranian Institute, New York, December 1946, pp. 50-57.

Edwards, H., Patterns and Precision, the Arts and Sciences of Islam, New York, 1981, p. 49, no. 8.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, repr. (col.), fig. 20.1, p. 56.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 98, repr. (col.).

Exhibition HistoryAnn Arbor, University of Michigan Museum of Art; Sassanian Silver: late Antique and early Medieval arts of luxury from Iran, August-September 1967, p. 73, cat. no. 51, repr.

Houston, Museum of Natural Science; San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute; Washington, National Museum of Natural History; et al., The Heritage of Islam, 1982-1984.