Silver Amphoriskos
Unknown · 3rd century BC (?)
Small enough to hold in one hand, this silver amphoriskos, a miniature amphora just over thirteen centimetres tall, was hammered and turned from sheet silver and then engraved. Around the neck runs a scroll of ivy leaves, the plant of Dionysos and of wine. On the body a necklace with pendants hangs like jewellery on the shoulder of the vessel, and the lower part is wrapped in nested acanthus leaves. The two handles are modern replacements, and the mouth has been squeezed out of shape into a kind of spout, evidence of a hard life before it reached the museum.
Vessels of this kind held perfumed oil and were luxury objects, closer to jewellery than to tableware. The museum dates it to the third century BC, in the Hellenistic period, and suggests it was made in Italy, perhaps in one of the Greek cities of the south, where silver plate was highly prized and often buried with the dead. It belongs to the old holdings of the Louvre, with no recorded date of entry. Compare its delicate engraved plant motifs with the painted scrolls on the large Tarentine vase nearby: the same decorative language on two very different scales.
Did You Know? The handles you see are not ancient at all; the original pair was lost and replaced by a restorer.
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