Vessels of similar form and construction have been excavated in Cyprus, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, with related ceramic examples from Cyprus and the Levant. The piriform shape of this vessel is divided into two sections by a narrow raised band. The convex lower body rests on a hollow ring foot above which the elegant neck gradually tapers into a trefoil lip. A three-ridged handle spouts from a palmette with tendrils and attaches the lower body to the lip. At the top of the handle the three ridges transform into three snake heads, the central one of which extends directly into the vessel. The closest parallel to this ewer is an example from Niebla in Spain, at the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid, which has looped snake heads at the top of the handle.
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Title:Phoenician-style ewer
Period:Iron Age
Date:ca. 7th–6th century BCE
Geography:Iberian Peninsula
Medium:Bronze
Dimensions:14 in. × 6 7/8 in. × 6 3/4 in. (35.6 × 17.4 × 17.1 cm)
Credit Line:Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1955
Accession Number:55.121.1
1945, purchased by Joseph Brummer from Vladimir Gregorievitch Simkhovitch (Brummer inv. no. N6450); purchased by Hagop Kevorkian at the auction sale of the Estate of the late Joseph Brummer, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, May 11-14, 1949, lot 134; acquired by the Museum in 1955, purchased from The Kevorkian Foundation, New York.
"La Méditerranée des Phéniciens de Tyr à Carthage," Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, November 6, 2007–April 20 2008.
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. 1949. Part Two of the Notable Art Collection belonging to the Estate of the late Joseph Brummer. Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, May 11-14, 1949, lot 134, pp. 32-33.
Harden, Donald. 1962. "The Phoenicians." Ancient Peoples and Places, 26. London: Praeger, pl. 53.
Muscarella, Oscar W. 1988. Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 445, no. 595.
Markoe, Glenn E. 2000. Phoenicians. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 150, fig. 57.
Jiménez Ávila, Javier. 2002. La Toréutica Orientalizante en la Península Ibérica. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, p. 386, cat. 5, pls. III-IV.
Jiménez Ávila, Javier. 2004. “El trabajo del bronce en el Orientalizante peninsular, algunas cuestiones referidas a la tecnología.” In Proceedings of Conference Ámbitos Tecnológicos, Ámbitos de Poder. La transición Bronce Final-Hierro en la Península Ibérica, 18 March 2004, Madrid, edited by A. Perea, p. 11.
Jiménez Ávila, Javier. 2006-2007. “La vajilla de bronce en le edad del hierro del Mediterráneo Occidental: procesos económicos e ideológicos”. Revista de Arqueología de Ponent 16-17, note 314.
Maaß-Lindemann, Gerta. 2007. "Le matériel céramique des tombes et la variation d'œnochoés." In La Méditerranée des Phéniciens de Tyr à Carthage, exh. cat. edited by Elisabeth Fontan and Hélène Le Meaux. Paris: Somogy and Institut du Monde Arabe, no. 197, pp. 177, 179, 351.
Dunn-Vaturi, Anne and Martina Rugiadi. 2023. "The Brummer Gallery and the Making of Iranian and Islamic Arts." In The Brummer Galleries, Paris and New York: Defining Taste from Antiquities to the Avant-Garde, edited by Christine Brennan, Christel Hollevoet-Force, and Yaëlle Biro. Boston: Brill, p. 436, n. 111 and Table 10.1, no. 71.
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Includes more than 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the time of the Arab conquests of the seventh century A.D.
