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Bottle with gods and hunting scenes
Signed by: Workshop of Navigius
Roman Provincial
Late Imperial Period
A.D. 270–320
Place of Manufacture: North Africa
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, African Red Slip
Dimensions
Height: 26.5 cm (10 7/16 in.); maximum diameter: 10.7 cm (4 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Celia and Walter Gilbert in honor of John J. Herrmann, Jr., Curator of Classical Art, 1978-2004
Accession Number2005.647
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
DescriptionTwo-handled bottle with cylindrical body. Exterior decoration of the body is divided into three registers by pairs of grooves. The top zone is centerd on Venus, who wears a tiara and holds her mantle outspread behind herself. She is flanked by Cupids--the one at the right, seated on a fruitbasket and holding a covered jar; the one at the left, seated on a pyxis and holding a perfume bottle(?). Beside the right Cupid is Diana, the huntress, with her bow. On the reverse are a dog biting a rabbit and a group of followers of Liber/Bacchus: two stayrs dancing with a Maenad watched by Silenus. Across the middle and lower registers, Venus reapppears, again with a Cupid seated on a fruitbowl at her right. Otherwise, the two lower registers are filled with horsemen armed with spears pursuing boar and by dogs biting rabbits. Around the shoulder is the inscription EX (O)FICI NAIGIVS ("from the workshop of Navigius").
ProvenanceAbout 1990/1996, Gawain McKinley (dealer; b. 1945 - d. 1996), New York; about 1990/1996, sold by Gawain McKinley to an anonymous dealer; December 17, 1997, sale (consigned by the anonymous dealer), Sotheby's, New York, lot 369, to Celia and Walter Gilbert, Cambridge, MA; 2005, gift of Celia and Walter Gilbert to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 14, 2005)
NOTE: According to information provided by Sotheby's, the bottle was consigned by a dealer who had acquired it from the antiquities dealer Gawain McKinley a few years before his death.
NOTE: According to information provided by Sotheby's, the bottle was consigned by a dealer who had acquired it from the antiquities dealer Gawain McKinley a few years before his death.