A Sasanian gilt silver lobed elliptical bowl
Cira 6th-7th Century A.D.
On a high oval ring foot, the deep dish comprised of five lobes, including three elongated sections and two smaller bosses, forming the eight-petalled, scalloped flat rim, the interior with four peaked ridges, the exterior with four corresponding depressions, remains of gilding on the smaller internal elongated sections and the exterior of the foot, 26.8cm long, weight 510g. 注脚Provenance:
Oliver Hoare (1945-2018) collection, UK, acquired prior to 1990.

For similar, see nos. 30-31 in A. Gunter and P. Jett, Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1992. For an example of this form of bowl in solid gold, see Hofkunst van de Sassanieden, Brussels, 1993, p.232, no.83.

These ornate gilded vessels were considered a luxury good in antiquity. They are thought to have been 'substantial and prestigious works', which 'reached distant lands as a form of propaganda or official gifts and as objects of barter or trade' (P.O. Harper, 'Boat-Shaped Bowls of the Sasanian Period', Iranica Antiqua, vol. XXIII, 1988, p.331). Vessels of this form, with varying degrees of decoration and gilding, have been discovered as far east as the Sogdian cities of Central Asia, and the form was replicated in later Chinese metalwork.