Incorrect Username, Email, or Password
This object does not yet have a description.

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

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

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

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