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Pair of handles from a stamnos with a youth sleeping between two dogs
Italic, Etruscan
Late Classical Period
380–360 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Italy, Etruria (or possibly Campania)
Medium/Technique
Bronze
Dimensions
Length 17 cm (6 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
William E. Nickerson Fund, No. 2
Accession Number60.232a-b
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
Catalogue Raisonné
Greek, Etruscan, & Roman Bronzes (MFA), no. 512; Sculpture in Stone and Bronze (MFA), p. 125 (additional published references).
DescriptionOn each handle, a youth with curly locks reclines asleep, his head on the chlamys wrapped around his left arm and high boots or sandals with straps around his ankles and on his feet. Head and feet are attached by lotus buds to large, inverted palmettes and volutes. On the rectangular plinths above each palmette, a seated dog faces inward. The dog is missing at the foot of one handle. The bottom and most of the rim of the stamnos are preserved; the former has line-molding and the latter a bead and ovolo pattern on the outer edge. Brown patina with light surface corrosions, sometimes in gray. Evidence of burning, presumably in antiquity.
ProvenanceBy 1958, Charles Lucien Morley (dealer), St. Moritz, Switzerland and New York [see note]; 1960, sold by Charles Lucien Morley to the MFA for $2500 (with MFA no. 60.232c). (Accession Date: April 14, 1960)
NOTE: In 1960, dealer Herbert Cahn of Münzen und Medaillen wrote to the MFA that he had bought the handles "in 1936 or 1937 from Ricciardi for Morgenroth" (probably Sigmund Morgenroth, 1874 - 1962, who sold other works of art to Morley), although this has never been verified.
NOTE: In 1960, dealer Herbert Cahn of Münzen und Medaillen wrote to the MFA that he had bought the handles "in 1936 or 1937 from Ricciardi for Morgenroth" (probably Sigmund Morgenroth, 1874 - 1962, who sold other works of art to Morley), although this has never been verified.