The king as hunter had become a standard royal image on silver plates during the reign of Shapur II (A.D. 310–379). The theme, symbolizing the prowess of Sasanian rulers, was used to decorate these royal plates, which were often sent as gifts to neighboring courts. The king has various royal attributes: a crown and fillet, covered globe, nimbus with beaded border, and beaded chest halter with fluttering ribbons. The identity of the Sasanian king on this plate is uncertain. His crown identifies him as either Peroz (r. 459–484) or Kavad I (r. 488–497, 499–531).
Sasanian silver bowls were usually hammered into shape and then decorated in various complex techniques. On this plate, separate pieces of silver were inserted into lips cut up from the plate to provide high relief. The vessel was then gilded using an amalgam of mercury and gold, which could be painted onto the surface, and niello—a metallic alloy of sulfur and silver—was inlaid. The result was a vessel of varied surface contours and colors.
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Title:Plate with king hunting rams
Period:Sasanian
Date:ca. mid-5th–mid-6th century CE
Geography:Iran, said to be from Qazvin
Culture:Sasanian
Medium:Silver, mercury gilding, niello inlay
Dimensions:H. 1 7/8 in. (4.6 cm), Diam. 8 5/8 in. (21.9 cm)
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1934
Accession Number:34.33
By 1930, collection of Hagop K. Kevorkian, New York; 1930, exhibited at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin; 1931, exhibited in the Persian Exhibition, London; acquired by the Museum in 1934, purchased from Hagop K. Kevorkian, New York.
“Exhibition of Sasanian Art,” Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin, 1930.
“International Exhibition of Persian Art,” Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1931.
“Sasanian Silver: Late Antique and Early Mediaeval Arts of Luxury from Iran,” The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, August–September 1967.
“Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971.
“Gold,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April 14–September 9, 1973.
“Wealth of the Roman World: Gold and Silver AD 300-700,” The British Museum, London, April 1–October 1, 1977.
“The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire,” Asia House Gallery, New York, The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
“Splendeur des Sassanides: L’Empire Perse Entre Rome et la Chine,” Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, February 12–April 25, 1993.
"Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World." The Getty Villa, Los Angeles, April 6, 2022–August 8, 2022.
von Falke, Otto. 1930. "Sasanidische Kunst." Pantheon 6, p. 569.
Wilson, Arnold T. 1931. Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Persian Art. London: Royal Academy of Arts, p. 60, no. 91S.
Dimand, Maurice S. 1934. "A Sasanian Silver Dish." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, pp. 74-77, fig. 1, 2.
Erdmann, K. 1936. "Die Sasanidischen Jagdschalen." Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, pp. 193-232, fig. 9.
Herzfeld, Ernst. 1938. "Khusrau Parwez und der Taq i Vastan." Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 9, pp. 91-159, pl. VII.
Pope, Arthur Upham. 1938. A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present, Vol. I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 724, vol. IV, pl. 213.
Dimand, Maurice S. 1939. "New Galleries of Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 34, pp. 122-126, fig. 2.
Dimand, Maurice. S. 1941. "A Review of Sasanian and Islamic Metalwork in A Survey of Persian Art." Ars Islamica 8, pp. 193-4, fig. 1.
Erdmann, K. 1943. Die Kunst Irans Zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Berlin: Kupferberg, pp. 95, 137, fig. 63.
Dimand, Maurice S. 1944. Handbook of Muhammadan Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 16, fig. 9.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1952. Art Treasures of the Metropolitan. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 238, no. 193.
Haskins, John F. 1952. "Northern Origins of 'Sasanian' Metalwork." Artibus Asiae 15 (3), pp. 246-8, fig. 1.
Ingholt, Harald. 1957. Gandharan Art in Pakistan. New York: Pantheon Books, p. 39, pl. XXIII:4.
Porada, Edith. 1962. Alt-Iran: die Kunst in Vorislamischer Zeit. Baden-Baden, Germany: Holle Verlag, p. 219.
Shepard, D.G. 1964. "Sasanian Art in Cleveland." Cleveland Art Museum Bulletin 51, pp. 77-78, fig. 15b.
Porada, Edith. 1965. The Art of Ancient Iran. New York: Crown Publishers, p. 219, pl. 59.
Bodenstein, Beatrice E., Vaughn E. Crawford, Prudence O. Harper, Oscar W. Muscarella. 1966. Ancient Near Eastern Art: Guide to the Collections. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 37, fig. 59.
Grabar, Oleg. 1967. "An Introduction to the Art of Sasanian Sillver." In Sasanian Silver: Late Antique and Early Medieval Arts of Luxury From Iran, exh. cat. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, p. 90, no. 2.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries, exh. cat. New York: Dutton, no. 102, p. 142.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1972. Guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 55, fig. 24.
Nickel, Helmut. 1973. "About the Sword of the Huns and the 'Urepos' of the Steppes." Metropolitan Museum Journal 7, pp. 135-137, fig. 17.
Kent, J.P.C. and K.S. Painter (ed.). 1977. Wealth of the Roman World. Gold and Silver AD 300-700, exh. cat. The Trustees of the British Museum, p. 147, no. 308.
Ettinghausen, Richard. 1978. "Das Pferd in der Orientalischen Kunst." Europäische Kunstzeitschrift, p. 65.
Harper, Prudence Oliver. 1978. The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire, exh. cat. New York: Asia House, pp. 18, 27, 35, 40-42.
Harper, Prudence O. 1979. “Court Silver of Sasanian Iran.” In Highlights of Persian Art, edited by Richard Ettinghausen and Ehsan Yarshater. Persian Art Series 1. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 96, 100, fig. 50.
Hibbard, Howard. 1980. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Harper and Row, p. 63, fig. 122.
Meyers, Pieter. 1981. "Technical Studies of Sasanian Silver." Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology Journal 1, pp. 242-245, pl. 1.
Harper, Prudence Oliver and Pieter Meyers. 1981. Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period, Vol. I. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 64-66, pl. 17.
Harper, Prudence O. et al. 1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Selections from the Collection of the Ancient Near East Department, exh. cat. Tokyo: Chunichi Shimbun, fig. 12.
Howard, Kathleen ed. 1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 49, fig. 10.
Jaffe, Irma B. 1983. "The Flying Gallop: East and West." The Art Bulletin 65 (2), pp. 191-2, fig. 23.
Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. 1983. The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. III: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, pl. 18.
Harper, Prudence O. et al. 1984. "Ancient Near Eastern Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 41 (4), Spring 1984, p. 46, fig. 63.
Herrmann, Georgina. 1989. “Parthian and Sasanian Saddlery: New Light from the Roman West.” In Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis. Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe, edited by Léon de Meyer and Ernie Haerinck, vol. 2. Ghent: Peeters, pp. 761, 769, 771, 806, pl. XVII.
Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire. 1993. Splendeur des Sassanides: L’Empire Perse Entre Rome et la Chine, exh. cat. Brussels: Communal, p. 189.
Bivar, A. David H. 1995. "The Royal Hunter and the Hunter God: Esoteric Mithraism under the Sasanians?" In Au carrefour des religions: mélanges offerts à Philippe Gignoux, edited by Rika Gyselen. Res Orientales 7. Bures-sur-Yvette : Groupe pour l'étude de la civilisation du Moyen-Orient, p. 30, fig. 1.
Wiesehöfer, Josef. 1996. Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD. London: I. B. Tauris, pl. 27a.
Choksy, Jamsheed K. 1999. "Sassanians." In Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, edited by G. W. Bowersock, Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 683.
Masia, Kate. 2000. “The Evolution of Swords and Daggers in the Sasanian Empire.” Iranica Antiqua 35, pp. 233, 275, fig. 1h.
Harper, Prudence O. 2000. "Sasanian Silver Vessels: The Formation and Study of Early Museum Collections." In Mesopotamia and Iran in the Parthian and Sasanian Periods: Rejection and Revival c. 238 BC-AD 642, edited by John Curtis. London: British Museum, no. 21, p. 52, pl. 27.
Harper, Prudence O. 2006. In Search of a Cultural Identity: Monuments and Artifacts of the Sasanian Near East, 3rd to 7th Century A.D. Biennial Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series No. 2. New York: Bibliotheca Persica, pp. 28, 53, 81, 119-20, fig. 27.
Canepa, Matthew P. 2009. The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 45. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 161-2, fig. 31.
Benzel, Kim, Sarah B. Graff, Yelena Rakic, and Edith W. Watts. 2010. Art of the Ancient Near East: A Resource for Educators. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, fig. 8, pp. 21, 110.
Collins, Paul. 2016. Mountains and Lowlands: Ancient Iran and Mesopotamia. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, pp. 198-99, fig. 108.
Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2017. "Arab Conquests and Sasanian Iran." History Today 67 (4), p. 29 [image flipped horizontally]
Colburn, Henry P. 2018. "From the Mediterranean to China - After Alexander." In Animal-Shaped Vessels in the Ancient World: Drinking with Gods, Heroes, and Kings, edited by Susanne Ebbinghaus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Art Museums, p. 324, fig. 7.17.
Xu, Jin. 2019. "The Funerary Couch of An Jia and the Art of Sogdian Immigrants in Sixth-Century China." The Burlington Magazine 161, p. 826, fig. 8, and front cover.
Spier, Jeffery, Timothy F. Potts, and Sara E. Cole, eds. 2022. Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, pp. 318-319, no. 170.
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