CIRCA 9TH-8TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

A SYRIAN STONE LIBATION BOWL
CIRCA 9TH-8TH CENTURY B.C.
In the form of a lion grasping the rim of the shallow bowl, its open mouth serving as a tube, biting through the basin with the teeth emerging, the tongue lolling, its mane a series of layered triangles, its head with pulled back ears and deeply-set almond-shaped eyes once inlaid, with a hollow projection at the end of the body for attachment, the underside of the bowl with a stylized palmette tree
5 ½ in. (14 cm.) long

Provenance

with The Merrin Gallery, New York, 1991.

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Lot Essay

While the majority of these stone libation bowls have been found in Northern Syria, others have been excavated across the ancient Mediterranean, in Turkey, Iran, and the Greek islands of Samos, Crete, and Ithaca. They vary in material used -- stone, terracotta, ivory and rarely Egyptian Blue-- and in the stylistic complexity. For a similar example with a palmette on the bowl's base, see no. 233 in O.W. Muscarella, Ladders to Heaven: Art Treasures from Land of the Bible; for a related example with a lion, see no. 235, op. cit.

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