Net-Pattern Bowl

Gilded and inlaid with gems, this small silver bowl demonstrates how artistic styles intermingled in the ancient Near East in the first century B.C. Flowers with garnets in their centers cover the interior. Each flower is placed in a pentagonal area, which forms the net pattern of the bowl. Most of the bowl's interior surface is gilded, but the bands separating the pentagons and four leaves of the central calyx retain their natural silver color for contrast. Stylistic features of the bowl suggest that it was made in Parthia. Today split among modern Afghanistan, Tadzhikistan, and Uzbekistan, Parthia was once part of the Persian Empire until Alexander the Great conquered it. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., first the Hellenistic Greek Seleucid dynasty and then the Graeco-Bactrian Empire ruled the region. This Greek domination of the area ended in the late 100s B.C. under a wave of invaders from the central Asian steppes. This complicated political history left its legacy in the art. Parthia was a prosperous and wealthy area, and its silversmiths incorporated Greek elements with Near Eastern ones in their work. On this bowl, the central calyx is Near Eastern, but the net pattern is Greek.