Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
Lot 18
A large Cypriot red polished ware flagon
28 November 2019, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £9,437.50 inc. premium
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Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
A large Cypriot red polished ware flagon
Early Bronze Age, circa 2700-1900 B.C.
With cut-away spout, the neck decorated with a deer and two applied stylised undulating snakes along the edges, the almost spherical body decorated with two applied stags and a deer, with three raised disc motifs on the shoulder at the base of the handle, 56cm high
Early Bronze Age, circa 2700-1900 B.C.
With cut-away spout, the neck decorated with a deer and two applied stylised undulating snakes along the edges, the almost spherical body decorated with two applied stags and a deer, with three raised disc motifs on the shoulder at the base of the handle, 56cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 21 May 1984, lot 184.
with La Reine Margot, Paris.
Private collection UK, acquired from the above in 1985.
For a large flagon with applied 'snake' motifs see D. Morris, The Art of Ancient Cyprus, Oxford, 1985, p. 230, pl. 261, and for similar applied stag decoration see p. 271. pl. 298. Morris notes that the deer of ancient Cyprus were fallow deer, dama mesopotamica, which in the Early Bronze Age became a popular motif on pottery. He also observes that although the undulating 'snake' decorations on Bronze Age pots never depict a head it seems likely that they do indeed represent snakes. The pre-occupation with images of elongated snakes may be related to the fact that Cyprus is home to the highly venomous Levant viper, which can grow up to one and a half meters long.