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Lot Essay
This form of a patera is thought to have functioned ritually as a libation vessel. While extremely rare in silver, the shape survives more often in bronze, with a plethora of bronze patera handles surviving from the Greek and Roman periods. However, the shape is known in silver since the Hellenistic period. See, for example, the silver patera with a ram head finial, no. 181-182 in Andronicus, Vergina, The Royal Tombs and the Ancient City.
Our knowledge of luxury silver vessels from antiquity is enriched by the great number of examples discovered in the excavations around the Bay of Naples, not only the vessels themselves but the wall-paintings in which they are portrayed. See, for instance, the tomb of C. Vestorio Prisco in Pompeii, which reveals the family's collection of silver, including cups, bowls, pitchers, rhyta and ladles atop the table, and its ritual vessels set below the table, including a large oinochoe and a patera of this shape, perhaps an heirloom (p. 121 in Oliver, Silver for the Gods, 800 Years of Greek and Roman Silver and www.pompeiipictures.net).
Our knowledge of luxury silver vessels from antiquity is enriched by the great number of examples discovered in the excavations around the Bay of Naples, not only the vessels themselves but the wall-paintings in which they are portrayed. See, for instance, the tomb of C. Vestorio Prisco in Pompeii, which reveals the family's collection of silver, including cups, bowls, pitchers, rhyta and ladles atop the table, and its ritual vessels set below the table, including a large oinochoe and a patera of this shape, perhaps an heirloom (p. 121 in Oliver, Silver for the Gods, 800 Years of Greek and Roman Silver and www.pompeiipictures.net).