Cypriot Bronze Age Jug

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Cypriot Bronze Age Jug

About the Item

Cypriot red polished ware tripod pot Early bronze Age, circa 2100-1800 B.C. Terracotta With old labels reading ‘Chypre’ and ‘No. 316’ Measure: height: 9 cm This tripod vessel from Ancient Cyprus is a charming testament to the talent and playful sensibility of the island’s bronze age artisans. The pot is decorated with finely incised diamond-shaped patterns across the body, with a series of lines circling the neck as it flares toward the lip. Pieces such as this belong to a style known as Red Polished Ware, popular during the Cypriot Early and Middle Bronze Age, achieved by applying an iron-rich slip and burnishing the clay with a stone, producing a wonderful, glossy ochre finish, thanks to which the technique seems to have survived in Cyprus long into Antiquity. In his Bibliotheca Historica, Diodorus Siculus, a 1st Century B.C. Greek historian, records: ‘The people of Cyprus have many arts and crafts, but their most famous product is their pottery. They burn their pottery carefully and, after polishing it with a hard stone, make it shining and beautiful.’ The effect is one of understated elegance, all the more impressive when one remembers that vessels such as this example predate the introduction of the potter’s wheel to Cyprus, and that their makers were able to achieve this kind of clarity of form working only by hand. This type of pottery was brought to Cyprus from Anatolia, at around 2400 B.C., by an enigmatic people referred as the Philia Culture, known mostly from their ceramic works, characterised by their diverse and innovative designs, and decorative geometric motifs. Alongside this, these settlers also introduced technologies like mud-brick buildings, bronze smelting, and the weight- ed loom. Many vessels like this example have been unearthed from burial grounds, demonstrating that they were not only everyday household objects, but treasured possessions, which would perhaps accompany their owners into the next life. Certainly, these Cypriot terracotta works were highly prized in their contemporary world, exported all across the Mediterranean Basin, and would later find homes in some of the most illustrious collections of the 19th Century. In the words of prominent Victorian collector, Thomas Backhouse Sandwith, “The ingenuity of the potters, or artists as they deserve to be called, of those remote times in devising new and singular shapes, and in adorning them with a variety of tasteful patterns, is certainly most remarkable.’ (‘’On the different styles of Pottery found in Ancient Tombs in the Island of Cyprus”, 1871) This particular piece comes from the collection of textile magnate Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819-1899), who assembled one of the most important private collections of antiquities in 19th Century France. Himself an archaeologist, trained by Auguste Terninck in 1874, he conducted numerous excavations, firstly in Saint-Nicolas-lez-Arras and later in Rouen, expanding his collection of antique glasses, vases, and bronzes. After a triumphant exhibition of terracotta figurines from Tanagra at the Paris World Fair in 1878, Bellon began showcasing his collection to the French public. In 1884, he exhibited in Rouen, at the Palace of the Consuls, where his collection was celebrated as the most impressive component of the show. As well as a collector and industrialist, Louis-Gabriel Bellon was a painter, and a close friend of the important proto-Impressionist artist, Camille Corot. After his death, Bellon’s son Paul (1844-1928) continued to expand his collection and transformed the family home in Saint-Nicolas into a private museum worthy of his father’s taste and vision. Unfortunately, much of his collection was lost when the museum was destroyed in the First World War, making the near-perfect condition in which this 4000 year old vessel has survived all the more extraordinary. Provenance: Collection of Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819-1899), Saint-Nicolas-lez-Arras and Rouen. Thence by descent.

Dimensions:
Height: 3.55 in (9 cm)Diameter: 2.37 in (6 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Ceramic
Period:
15th Century and Earlier
Date of Manufacture:
circa 2100-1800 B.C.
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
London, GB
Reference Number:
Seller: 429661stDibs: LU1052233421722