The Pergamon Vase
Unknown · 2nd century BC (Hellenistic; a Roman date has also been proposed)
A vast marble basin, more than a metre and a half across, carved from a single block in the shape of a dinos, the round bowl Greeks used for mixing wine. Around its belly gallops a horse race. Fifteen riders in short belted tunics, boots and flying cloaks, most of them in soft caps, lean over their mounts; some brandish whips or sticks, one horse rears, and one rider has been thrown and tumbles under the hooves. Bands of tongues, leaves and a braided cable frame the frieze above and below. Two mortises on the shoulder once held handles or a lid.
The bowl comes from Pergamon, the capital of the Attalid kings in western Asia Minor and one of the great centres of Hellenistic sculpture, and was probably carved there in the second century BC, though some scholars have argued for a Roman date. It was never lost: travellers noted it at Bergama from the fourteenth century onward. Much of the rim has been restored in marble, and the surface was cleaned in the nineteenth century. It came to the Louvre as a gift in May 1838 under Louis-Philippe.
Did You Know? Fifteen riders race around the bowl, and one of them has just been thrown from his rearing horse.
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