1925.30.55: Paestan Red-figure Fish Plate

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1925.30.55

Title

Paestan Red-figure Fish Plate

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

350-320 BCE

Places

Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, South Italy

Period

Classical period, Late, to Early Hellenistic

Culture

Greek

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/291119

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Terracotta

Technique

Wheel-made

Dimensions

5.1 x 17.6 cm (2 x 6 15/16 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

1925.30.55

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

Low stem. Broad foot with ring base and central concavity. Short, thick stem continues to a broad, shallow bowl. Central depression embellished with a raised ring. Wide, curved rim, downturned to vertical.

Yellowish-buff fabric. Underside of vessel is un- or self-slipped. Central depression of bowl is surrounded by a worn black-figure wave pattern.

Three red-figure marine creatures decorate floor of plate: a squid, octopus, and bream (see Trendall and McPhee 1987, 111), with a small spiral shell between the octopus and squid, and another shell (clam or scallop?) 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. Broad-leafed laurel on rim.

Vessel is intact and in good condition.

Commentary

Trendall and McPhee identify this vessel as Paestan, and place it within a group of fish plates associated with the Painter of Naples 1778 and his workshop (Paestan IIIC/58), whom they specify as one of the successors of the workshop of Asteas and Python. See Trendall and McPhee 1987, 111, no. 58.

Trendall and McPhee (1987, 56) argue the likelihood that fish plates were used to serve fish, and that some may have had a solely funerary function. The scholars focus on the small depression in the center of these plates, indicating that such depressions were likely meant to catch fish juices or the oil in which the fish were cooked. They also cite the evidence of some small bowls sometimes found with the plates and believed to have held vinegar or other condiments meant to dress the fish. Additionally, and perhaps very tellingly, "[t]hat fish-plates were used for the serving of fish seems likely from the fact that two plates from the Punic necropolis at Palermo, one red-figured (IB/7, below) and the other plain (B.C.A. 2/1-2, 1981, 134, fig. 17, 2; see below, p. 66), were found with a mass of fish-bones on them; they could also, of course, have been used for funerary purposes, and those of smaller dimensions were probably designed solely for that purpose."

While Trendall and McPhee indicate that establishing "a chronology for South Italian fish-plates is a difficult task" (58), they place the first, and very limited, South Italian manufacture of fish plates at Sicily and Calabria c. 380 BCE. When South Italian red-figured vase production increased in Campania, Paestum, and Apulia in the middle of the fourth century, the production of fish plates also increased. From c. 350-320 BCE, South Italian workshops made these in large numbers. Trendall and McPhee identify few fish plates which match what they refer to as the "barbarised" style of late South Italian red-figure, and so identify 320 BCE as a time after which the volume of manufacture of these vessels diminished greatly.

Since the two attribute this vessel to one of the workshops which succeeded that of Asteas and Python, it seems logical to place the date of our vessel at some point towards or after the middle of that 350-320 BCE period, perhaps around 335 BCE.

For a discussion of the types of marine life depicted on South Italian fish plates, see Trendall and McPhee 1987, 57-58.

LaCroix has collected the very sparse literary evidence apparently referring to fish plates, and limited to Aristophanes and scholiasts on Aristophanes. Although there is no description of the shape or decoration of these plates, the literature refers to 'ichthyeros pinakiskos', plausibly translated as fish plates or boards. See La Croix 1937, 34-35.


Andreya Mihaloew, 03/02/2008

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), p. 12, pl. 20, 4
• L. LaCroix, La Faune Marine dans la Decoration des Plats a Poissons, Léon LaCroix (Verviers, Belgium, 1937), pl. XII
• Ian McPhee and A. D. Trendall, "Greek Red-Figured Fish Plates", Antike Kunst (Beihefte) (Basel, 1987), p. 111, Paestan IIIC/58
• [Reproduction Only], Persephone (Spring 2001), Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 37

Exhibition History

• Re-View: S422 Ancient & Byzantine Art & Numismatics, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 04/12/2008 - 06/18/2011

Verification Level