15th Century and Earlier Objets d Art and Vertu

Byzantine Bronze Situla with Arcaded Hunting Scenes and Greek Benediction. Eastern Mediterranean (Byzantine Empire). 6th century A.D. Measurements Height: 18.5 cm (excluding handle). Diameter: 28 cm. Description A Byzantine bronze situla, hammered from a single sheet of bronze, cylindrical in form with a flat base and retaining a semicircular swing handle. The handle is secured by looped attachments beneath the rim; on one side, two early repairs or reinforcements are visible, consisting of rivetted metal strips strengthening the attachment. These interventions indicate prolonged use and the continued value accorded to the vessel in antiquity. The exterior is encircled by a continuous decorative frieze organised into architectural arcades, within which unfolds a heroic hunting narrative. Muscular male figures, lightly clad and armed with spears, shields, and stones, advance against a lion and a panther. One hunter is shown drawing forward a hunting net, adding narrative complexity and compositional balance. The animals are rendered in animated poses, rearing and twisting in response to their attackers. The arcaded framework is densely enriched with vegetal and floral ornament, executed through fine incision and punch work, producing a richly textured surface characteristic of early Byzantine bronze decoration. Immediately below the rim runs a continuous Greek inscription, incised in capitals: ΥΓΙΕΝΩΝ ΧΡΩ KYPI EN ΠΟΛΛΟΙΣ ΣE XPONOIΣ KE KAΛΟΙΣ META THΣ KYPAΣ XAPIΣ (“Use this in good health, master, for many good years, together with your wife, with grace.”) The situla retains a deep green patina, with areas of lighter accretion, consistent with age and long-term preservation. Context and Interpretation The situla belongs to a well-defined group of Byzantine utilitarian bronze vessels produced during the 6th century A.D., combining domestic function with sophisticated figural decoration. The benedictory inscription conforms to a standardised formula encountered on a wide range of late antique household objects, invoking health, longevity, and marital harmony, and functioning both as a pious expression and as an apotropaic invocation. The hunting imagery derives from classical visual traditions in which the hunt symbolised courage, control, and elite virtue. In the Byzantine context, such imagery persisted as a conventionalised ornamental language, increasingly detached from its original pagan associations and absorbed into a Christian domestic milieu. The juxtaposition of heroic figuration with a Christianised good-wish inscription is characteristic of the cultural synthesis of the eastern Mediterranean in the 6th century. The quality of workmanship, together with the evidence of ancient repair, suggests that the situla was a valued object, likely produced in a major eastern Mediterranean workshop and retained over an extended period of use. Comparisons A closely related Byzantine bronze situla with arcaded hunting scenes is preserved in the Benaki Museum, Athens (inv. no. 32553), providing a strong parallel for both iconography and ornamental organisation. Further comparable examples are held in the British Museum, London (Registration nos. 1988,1001.1 and 1867,0729.136), illustrating the widespread use of continuous figural friezes and vegetal ornament on Byzantine bronze buckets of the 6th century. The broader significance and later reception of such vessels is exemplified by the Bromeswell (Sutton Hoo) Bucket, a fragmentary 6th-century Byzantine copper-alloy situla decorated with a hunting scene and Greek inscription, discovered in an Anglo-Saxon burial context. Its reuse as a cremation container for a high-status individual underscores the exceptional prestige and symbolic value attributed to Byzantine situlae far beyond their place of manufacture. A further closely comparable situla was sold by Gorny Mosch, Munich, Antike Kunst, 12 December 2012 (auction 210), lot 37. Although originally catalogued as earlier, this vessel is now more convincingly understood as being of comparable date and eastern Mediterranean origin. It displays closely related decorative features, including figural and animal ornament...

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