Sasanian Bowl with Female Busts in Medallions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2009

Bowl with Female Busts in Medallions
Sasanian Empire, Iran, late 3rd- early 4th century AD
Silver
Inscribed in Pahlevi: “This water vessel is the property of S [ ] 296 drahm.”

Accession Number: 1970.5

The lady portrayed in five medallions on this bowl has a hairstyle that suggests that she may have been a queen in the Sasanian royal family in the time of King Narseh, and the vessel is probably a product of a royal workshop of the third or fourth century AD. The use of medallion portraits as a form of decoration was borrowed by the Sasanians from Roman works of art, such as the glass bowl also exhibited here. Silver Sasanian “medallion bowls” inspired, in turn, a type of Central Asian luxury production that persisted well beyond the geographical borders and chronological limits of the Sasanian Empire.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum label