1925.30.56: South Italian Red-figure Fish Plate

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1925.30.56

Title

South Italian Red-figure Fish Plate

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

360-320 BCE

Places

Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Campania

Period

Classical period, Late, to Early Hellenistic

Culture

Greek

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/291032

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Terracotta

Technique

Wheel-made

Dimensions

5.2 x 17.3 cm (2 1/16 x 6 13/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Bequest of Joseph C. Hoppin, 1925. Purchased in Naples in 1894.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Joseph C. Hoppin

Accession Year

1925

Object Number

1925.30.56

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

Campanian red-figured fish plate with low stem. Broad foot with thick ring base and central concavity. Short, thick stem continues to a broad, shallow bowl. Central depression set off by a raised ring. Dramatically everted rim, angled slightly upward from the vertical.

Yellowish-buff fabric. Underside of vessel is un- or self-slipped. Black-figure wave pattern on rim. Central depression is slipped black but is emphasized by a framing reserve band.

The floor of the plate is decorated with representations of two types of bream and a torpedo. Details are added in white and black. One bream has a long, pointed mouth, with black dots surrounding its eye. The painter has placed along its body several black upside-down v-shaped stripes, a jagged dorsal fin with a triangular section at back, and a white underbelly. The other bream is similar but has a shorter mouth, stripes only behind his eyes and just before his tail, and is generally larger than the other. The torpedo has a round body with several black and white dots. Its jagged mid-section is outlined in strokes of added white, and its tail, the tip of which has been picked out in added white, bends around to the left.

Vessel is in good condition, although missing chips from the underside of its rim.




Desc. of 1925.30.56:
Central depression of bowl is surrounded by a worn black-figure wave pattern. Three red-figure marine creatures decorate bowl: a squid, octopus, and bream (see Trendall and McPhee 1987, 111), with a small spiral shell between the octopus and squid, and another shell between the squid and bream. Squid and octopus with short tentacles. Bream with a characteristic line and dot pattern. Details added in white on the sea creatures and on their black-slipped background have largely faded, worn away, or deteriorated.

Vessel is intact and in good condition.

Publication History

• Joseph Clark Hoppin and Albert Gallatin, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, U.S.A.: volume 1, Hoppin and Gallatin Collections, Libraire Ancienne Edouard Champion (Paris, 1926)

Verification Level