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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1987.131
Title
Vertical Handle from a Hydria
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
handle
Date
third quarter 6th century BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Corinth (Corinthia)
Period
Archaic period
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/304127

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Leaded bronze
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
19.6 x 13.3 x 5.7 cm (7 11/16 x 5 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Leaded Bronze:
Cu, 86.53; Sn, 9.12; Pb, 3.58; Zn, 0.013; Fe, 0.03; Ni, 0.03; Ag, 0.06; Sb, 0.06; As, 0.56; Bi, less than 0.025; Co, 0.011; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, less than 0.001
J. Riederer

Technical Observations: The handle was originally cast in one piece by the lost-wax process and is mostly hollow. The back surface of the handle is not conformal with the outer one, which points to the use of a premade core and, by association, to the use of a direct lost-wax casting process.

It is impossible to tell to what extent the surface detail was refined in the wax or reworked in the metal, given that the surface detail is quite worn overall—especially on the vertical element for gripping—although the main decorative elements are still clearly recognizable.

Rivet holes, which are framed by the lion’s front legs and pierce through the rams’ bodies, were created in the wax stage. The rivets are now missing, but a small piece of metal between the paws of the top right lion appears, upon closer examination, to be an additional rivet; the outline of another hole of this other rivet, now filled with metal, can be seen from the back alongside the other hole. Another rivet, which helped to affix the handle to the hydria, is still in place in the neck of the gorgon at the bottom of the handle. The end that was hammered flat on the inside still holds a fragment of the vessel in place.

The underside of the top of the handle originally extended into two rounded flanges, one of which is now missing. The remaining flange is also pierced by a hole for a rivet.

The patina is a mottled dark brown, green, and blue with some lighter brown, and there are larger areas with reddish material both on the front and back sides of the vertical element of the handle.

Some dark gray and tan core material remains in the handle and the backs of the lions’ and rams’ bodies. The white and red layered material that protrudes from the bottom of the vertical handle could be mineralized lead.

The handle is cracked across the lower part of the vertical element and repaired by some invisible mechanical means on the inside of the handle.


Francesca G. Bewer (submitted 2012)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Blumka Gallery, New York (1963)] sold; to Joseph Ternbach, New York (1963-1987) sold; [through Sotheby's sale 5640, November 24-25, 1987), lot #136] to; Harvard University Art Museums.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, David M. Robinson Fund
Accession Year
1987
Object Number
1987.131
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This vertical handle belonged to a large Archaic bronze hydria, the neck, shoulder, and body of which joined at sharp angles, as contrasted with the continuous curve of the later hydria-kalpis form seen in 1949.89. The shaft is rounded on the back and consists of three broad, flat facets on the front. A crack extends horizontally across the handle near the middle. At the top of the handle, where the thumb of a person picking up the vessel would have rested, a nine-petalled palmette projects from a pair of opposed volutes with relief oculi.

The top of the handle consists of two small, outward-facing lions whose reclining bodies are hollow at the back and whose forepaws each frame a hole for a rivet attachment. The lions’ symmetrical wavy tails extend downward on the upper edges of the handle. The back or underside of the top of the handle terminates in two flanges. The right-hand flange, marked by a hole through which a rivet once passed, has an intact rounded end.

The base plate features a gorgoneion whose hair descends in two wavy relief locks on either side of her face. The tips of these locks turn outward. She has large oval eyes, a stubby nose, and widely spread lips, within which two rows of incised teeth and a protruding tongue are visible. At the base of her neck is the hammered head of a bronze pin or rivet, which extends through the object and still has a small fragment of the hammered vase adhered to its inner left side. Two reclining rams face outward, flanking the gorgoneion. Their tails, with incised diagonal bands suggesting the fleece, extend downward. The rams’ outer forelegs are modeled in the round, as are their outer hindquarters. Each ram has a hole in the middle of its back for a rivet.

This handle belongs to a group of elaborate bronze hydria handles (1); D. K. Hill reasonably attributes these handles and hydriai to a workshop at Corinth, with a date between 540 and 520 BCE (2).

NOTES:

1. For comparison, see M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 288-89, nos. 413 (inv. no. 01.7474) and 414 (inv. no. 99.462); E. Diehl, Die Hydria: Formgeshichte und Verwendung im Kult des Altertums (Mainz, 1964) 15-17 and 214-15 (gorgoneion group), to be read with the review by D. von Bothmer, Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1990) 600; and C. M. Stibbe, “Archaic Bronze Hydriai,” Bulletin antieke beschaving: Annual Papers on Classical Archaeology 67 (1992): 1-62, esp. 38-42.

2. D. K. Hill, “A Class of Bronze Handles of the Archaic and Classical Periods,” American Journal of Archaeology 62 (1958): 193-201.


David G. Mitten

Publication History

  • David Gordon Mitten and Suzannah F. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World, exh. cat., Verlag Philipp von Zabern (Mainz am Rhein, Germany, 1967), p. 75, no. 70.
  • Ancient Greece: Life and Art, The Newark Museum (Newark, NJ, 1980), no. 56.
  • Rivka Merhav, A Glimpse into the Past: The Joseph Ternbach Collection, exh. cat., Israel Museum (Jerusalem, Israel, 1981), p. 186-87, no. 147
  • Conrad M. Stibbe, "Archaic Bronze Hydriai", Bulletin Antieke Beschaving (1992), Vol. 67, 1-62, p. 59, no. I8.
  • Stephen R. Wilk, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, Oxford University Press (UK) (Oxford, NY, 2000), p. 40, fig. 3.15

Exhibition History

  • Master Bronzes from the Classical World, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/04/1967 - 01/23/1968; City Art Museum of St. Louis, St. Louis, 03/01/1968 - 04/13/1968; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 05/08/1968 - 06/30/1968
  • Ancient Greece: Life and Art, The Newark Museum, 02/02/1980 - 03/16/1980
  • A Glimpse into the Past: The Joseph Ternbach Collection, Israel Museum, 01/01/1981 - 12/31/1982

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu