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 –
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.
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
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
