Byzantium, 6th century

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Description

A Silver Plate

the silver dish decorated with incised scallops on the inner rim, in the centre a niello cross encircled by ivy, on plain, hollow circular squat foot, the base with three control stamps

Provenance

Princess Kniaginia Gogenloge;
bought by Oaddey Wenediktov Sytsko, 8th November 1896;
taken out of Russia during the revolution and thereafter by descent

Catalogue Note

The form of both the plate and its cross are characteristic of the sixth century and can be closely compared with a silver plate made and stamped in Constantinople between 578 and 582, now in the British Museum, as well as two in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, illustrated by Cruikshank Dodd. The square control mark on the base appears to be that of Tiberius Mauricius (582-602): the quatrefoil seems to be a later version of Mauricius with MK (Mauricius) dominating. The round stamp belongs to the eighth century and depicts Leo III with Constantine V (720-742). This latter eighth century stamp is unusual in as much that it has been generally accepted that the system of countermarking in several reigns was set aside in the seventh century.

RELATED LITERATURE
E.Cruikshank Dodd, plate 73; Byzantine Art, A European Art, p.421; Handbook of the Byzantine Collection, p.22; D.Buckton, p.93