Description:
If you are looking for an antiquity that makes you smile: look no further!
This is an absolutely amazing Roman Red Ware vase from Tunisia, North Africa, with an applied ribbed strap handle and a funnel mouth.
Depicted in a comical way is an elderly man, possibly Silenus, looking slightly ludicrous. His balding head is encircled by a vine wreath, quite appropriately one might say. His hair and beard are ribbed as well as incised, his eyebrows are chevron-incised and his face has fleshy cheeks. But the most eye-catching is the way he looks at the world around him. His drooping eyes, having incised pupils and irises, give him an air of mischief. Or is he just plain drunk? An exceptional caricature!
He has been staring at me for quite some time now, but I still cannot look at him without smiling. What a wonderful piece of ancient art!
Published:
Antiquities and Islamic Art, (New York, Sotheby’s, 29 November 1989), no. 126 (illustrated).
Dating:
Roman, North African, circa 3rd century C.E.
Size:
Height 24.8 cm.
Provenance:
Dutch private collection; prior to that private US collection; ex Sotheby’s New York, 1989.
Condition:
Professionally reassembled from a few large pieces with no new material; the repairs are almost invisible to the naked eye; only under a black light it will become clear where the repairs are. Two small chips on the rim and one at the bottom.
SOLD
Stock number:
C0296