Antiquity of the Week

Last week we began a new weekly series, “Antiquity of the Week” to focus on selected examples of ancient art currently on our website at http://www.clioancientart.com/index.html.

This week we offer a large mold-made Roman red slip ware flask from North Africa, dating to the 3rd Century AD. Here are the details –

Web link: http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i204.html

Roman Red Slip Ware Flask
CULTURE / REGION OF ORIGIN: Roman North Africa (modern Tunisia)
DATE: Circa 3rd Century CE
DIMENSIONS: 16 cm (5.25 in.) tall.

DESCRIPTION: A Roman North African red slip pottery flask with applied decoration. The fabric is very fine and the vessel thin walled and light. The piriform vessel is decorated with appliques, including nude male figures with drapery, possibly depicting Herakles, on either side, with a lion or panther running beneath. Other appliques include three tall palm branches, one to either side of the handle and one between the male figures, and above each male figure a victor’s crown bearing a pair of laurel sprays and central rosette. The handle is mould made and bears a detailed palm branch in relief along its entire height. A simple double moulding below the mouth defines the decorated area of the vessel’s body, and the mouth itself is flattened, projecting outward. The vessel rests on a small splayed foot. Reassembled from fragments but complete with no fill. An impressive example.

 

PROVENANCE: Ex Dr. Harley Baxter (1947-2009) Collection, Melbourne, Australia.

 

COMPARISONS: For a very closely related example, see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession number 74.51.383, part of the Cesnola Collection, reassembled from fragments: http://metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/74.51.383
Also, John W. Hayes, Roman Pottery in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1976, Number 96 (Plate 12). Also, Christies antiquities sale of 8 June, 2004 (Sale 1384, Lot 166) for another similar example, also reassembled from fragments, that brought $1,434.00.

 

As the demand for high quality Roman red slip pottery, frequently referred to as Samian Ware, outpaced the supply in the 1st Century AD, local imitation and variations sprang up at workshops all around the Mediterranean, especially in North Africa and Asia Minor. The North African examples, made in the Roman province that now corresponds to Tunisia, had the most longevity, with fine quality pottery and oil lamps continuing in production well into the 6th Century.

 

http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i204.html

 

Below is a 2nd Century AD example of locally produced red ware from western Asia Minor, gifted by our Trust for Ancient Art and now in the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California.

 

 

 

Fine quality red ware ceramic oil lamps are perhaps the best known output from the North African pottery workshops of the later Roman period. Many examples of 4th Century AD onwards display Christian symbolism. Here is an earlier example of the 2nd Century with an unusual motif of a dwarf or pygmy holding an amphora

 

http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i128.html

Our Move is Complete

We've completed our long planned move from Charlotte, NC to the historic coastal City of Wilmington, NC. We will begin posting again in just a couple of days. Meanwhile, visit us at:
http://www.clioancientart.com/

Not an Antiquity but an Extraordinary Object, Just the Same

An extraordinary manuscript is to be auctioned in London, October 8 — An unusual Qur’an manuscript, written from memory by Ayub bin Suleyman (Job, son of Solomon), a former slave, originally from the kingdom of Foota (modern Senegal), who had been taken into slavery, transported to America, escaped from his owners in Maryland, made his way to England and eventually home to west Africa. Dated AD 1733 Here is the link to this object at Bonhams auction house in London — http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21359/lot/137/?page_anchor=MR1_page_lots%3D2%26r1%3D100%26m1%3D1

Antiquity of the Week: Roman Marble Fragmentary Eros Sculpture

Beginning this week we will post detailed information once each week about one particular antiquity from our inventory.

We begin with a Roman marble fragmentary Eros sculpture.
 


Here are the basic facts on this piece -

CULTURE / REGION OF ORIGIN: Roman Empire, possibly western Asia Minor
DATE:1st or 2nd Century CE
DIMENSIONS: 17.2 cm. (6.7 in.) long, 10.8 cm (4.2 in.) wide, 8 cm (3.1 in.) deep

DESCRIPTION:A Roman marble relief fragment of Eros, probably from an architectural relief or sarcophagus panel. the figure’s posture is such that it may be reclining, hovering in a larger scene or stepping downward or forward with the left leg. The figure is preserved from just above the navel to the ankles, with the legs parted, one leg bent at the knee more than the other. The figure has the rounded belly and chubby legs typical of Roman Erotes. The preserved surfaces are smooth, with only a few chips. The marble is medium grained with a faintly tan or beige patina, with a few small areas of darker brown and gray discoloration. The bottom section has received two drill holes in the modern period for mounting on a display stand. The flat back side, possibly the interior wall of the sarcophagus panel, has slight remains of a modern adhesive material.

PROVENANCE: Ex UK Private collection

PUBLISHED: Bonhams, ANTIQUITIES, 1 May, 2008, London, Page 206, illustrated in color on Page 207

The posture and general style of this partially preserved figure of Eros suggest it was once part of a much larger sculpted panel composition on a marble sarcophagus. The particular crystalline characteristics of the marble suggest either an Italian origin or stone from western Asia Minor. From the lateFirst Century BCE onward Roman sarcophagai were frequently adorned all around with deep relief figural sculpture. Some examples are noted in the COMPARISONS below.


COMPARISONS: For related examples of Erotes from sarcophagai, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website (www.mfa.org/collections/search), Accession Number 76.719 for a fragment of a sarcophagus with Erotes playing with a Silenos mask, one of them having fallen on his back. Also, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website (www.mfa.org/collections/search, Accession Number 1973.480, with 2 Erotes or Amorini in very high relief, dated 200-225 CE.

 Note that this item will likely be consigned to a one year exhibit of Mediterranean antiquities at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, beginning Spring of 2014.

We're Having a Moving Sale!

Hello Clio Customers, Friends and Fans:

We’re moving! And we’re having a big sale to help make that happen, with 25% off absolutely everything on our website, including antiquities, ancient coins, books and art. 

Sale prices take effect 12:01 AM Eastern Time Friday, September 27 and remain in effect until 11:59 PM Tuesday, October 1. We’ve never offered discounts this substantial before and it’s doubtful we ever will again so take advantage of this 5 day sale. it’s a rare opportunity to acquire fine antiquities and ancient coins, research books and documentation and related works of art at exceptional prices. Pay with PayPal and your 25% discount will be refunded almost immediately. 

Many of you will recall that in July of 2012 we moved from the San Francisco Bay area across country to Charlotte, NC. Now we’re completing our coast-to-coast transition by continuing just a few hours east to the North Carolina coastal City of Wilmington, with its beautiful beaches and historic old town full of charming colonial era and antebellum buildings There’s a view of historic Wilmington seen from the Cape Fear River at the bottom of this page. 

Thank you for visiting our website. We hope you’ll find something you like at these remarkable discounted prices. Of course, we’ll be adding plenty of new fine quality antiquities in time for the holidays. 

Best Wishes,

Chris M. Maupin
Clio Ancient Art and Antiquities
Chris Maupin Trust for Ancient Art
http://www.clioancientart.com/

Final Appeal: Trust for Ancient Art Crowd Funding Campaign

Just 4 days left in the Trust for Ancient Art crowd funding campaign. Now is the time to give, if you can.

We’ve achieved so much in 3 years, gifting 33 examples of Near Eastern and Egyptian bronzes, Cypriot and Greek ceramics, Roman oil lamps and glass vessels and early Byzantine art to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California in 2010, further donations to the Crocker of superb Egyptian funerary art, Greek bronze and Roman limestone sculpture in 2012, fine Greek and Roman ceramics to the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Department of Classical Studies in 2012 and the recent gift of  a fine 14th Century English ceramic floor tile to the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Please help us continue this work next year by giving a gift of any size today in US, Canadian or UK funds. Here is the Campaign's Indiegogo web page: http://igg.me/at/Ancient-Art-Education-for-All/x/4074220. It includes:

* Detailed descriptions of what the Trust does and why, accomplishments and plans for the future.
* A short video appeal.
* Photo gallery of every antiquity the Trust has gifted to date.
* Descriptions of "perks" we're offering to donors at various levels.

All funds will be directed toward acquiring and dispersing appropriate examples of ancient art to carefully selected public museums and university collections. The Trust is not a registered non-profit, tax exempt. Gifts are not tax deductible.

Please visit the Trust's page on Indiegogo, read through it, view the objects we've gifted, watch the short video. We hope you’ll find it worthy of a contribution. Thank you!

http://igg.me/at/Ancient-Art-Education-for-All/x/4074220

Megarian Ware: Transition and Continuity from the Hellenistic to Roman Worlds

Two closely related pottery bowls on our website typify a type of pottery marking the all important transition from the later Hellenistic period to the time of Roman dominance, even before the formal establishment of Rome’s empire, of the broader Mediterranean world. Both bowls are examples of what is generally termed Megarian Ware, a type of pottery produced mainly in Greece and Asia Minor but also with imitative production centers in Italy. Megarian Ware, the name of which comes from 19th Century finds of this pottery near Megara in Greece, offers important insights into the transition from the ubiquitous red figure “painted” pottery of the classical era to the red slip pottery that would come to dominate the Mediterranean world for centuries to come.

LINK: http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i202.html

LINK: http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i203.html

Both are thin walled bowls and made from fine hard pink clay. One is covered in a deep orange-red slip, the other in a chocolate brown slip. But the most important distinguishing characteristic of both, and of most Megarian Ware, is that they are mold-made, resulting in an all-over pattern of rosettes, laurel leaves and repeating geometric shapes in high relief.

Megarian Wares were distributed over a very wide swath of the Mediterranean and beyond. An example in the British Museum was probably made in Cyprus but was found at Salamanca in Spain: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=392743&partId=1&searchText=Megarian+Ware+Bowl&images=true&page=1

The different color slips used on these bowls is an important factor in understanding the role of pottery in the Hellenistic to Roman Imperial transition. Establishment of a relatively uniform Hellenistic material culture across a great geographic expanse, from South Italy and Sicily in the west to Syria and Mesopotamia in the east, led to the decline of the classical red figure pottery tradition. Potters turned to the mass production technique of stamping out vessels in molds. Some of these featured complex mythological scenes, such as this example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: http://metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/254263. Dark brown and black slips on Megarian vessels offered a smooth transition from the attractive black slip wares of the later Classical era. A great deal of black to dark brown slip Megarian Ware pottery has been found in Republic level excavations in Rome and its colonies. The orange-red slip examples eventually came to dominate the market and provided the immediate inspiration, at least in color and fabric, for the fine, hard Roman red wares developed in Gaul and Northern Italy in the late Republic. These would “spin off” countless imitations at workshops all over the Mediterranean world, finally concluding with the red ware of Roman North Africa in the 3rd, 4th and 5th Centuries.

Here is an example formerly with our Trust for Ancient Art, gifted in 2010 to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, produced in Asia Minor in the 2nd half of the 1st Century AD:

And here is a 3rd Century example currently on our website of later North African red ware:

                                       LINK:http://www.clioancientart.com/catalog/i204.html