plate;
forgery
- Museum number
- 133024
- Description
-
Silver plate showing a king hunting lions; king stands on one lion and plunges dagger into the head of each of the two flanking lions; possibly cast; no centering mark; low cylindrical foot ring, formed by bending and soldering a strip of sheet, measuring 0.2 cm thick, to form an incomplete foot ring; the dress suggests that a late Sasanian ruler is intended but the plate itself is of a much later date.
- Production date
- 20thC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 11.30 centimetres (of foot ring)
-
Diameter: 24.10 centimetres
-
Weight: 930 grammes
- Curator's comments
- After acquisition in 1962 it was displayed as a Sasanian plate of the fifth century AD. Its authenticity then began to be questioned. It was not lent to the Sasanian exhibition in Brussels in 1990 on the grounds that it was either early Islamic or considerably later. It has been regarded by some scholars as a nineteenth century Qajar creation inspired by Sasanian art but it may simply be a twentieth century fake. From 1994 onwards it was therefore cautiously labelled as a later copy. The object was removed from display when the Ancient Iran gallery was completely redesigned in 2005.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
G52/IRAN/22/5, from official opening 17/11/95.
G49/IRAN, case 22, no. 5, 16 Jun-23 Dec 1994.
Iranian Room [IR], case 20, no. 3, Jul 1975-ca 1990.
- Acquisition date
- 1962
- Acquisition notes
- Said to be from a Russian collection; deposited on offer as a purchase 4 October 1962 (WAA deposit book entry 1539).
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 133024
- Registration number
- 1962,1210.1
