Dish with King Hormizd II or Hormizd III Hunting Lions (400–600 CE): Art, History and Details

Dish with King Hormizd II or Hormizd III Hunting Lions (400–600 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Lion hunting was a traditional royal sport in ancient Near Eastern cultures and was frequently incorporated into artwork, such as Assyrian (about 912–612 BCE) palace reliefs. Thematically, depictions of the hunt in royal artwork bridge the pre- and post-Islamic worlds. This dish features the Sasanian ruler Hormizd II (reigned 303–309 CE), identifiable by his distinctive crown. The style of the king’s and horse’s equipment suggest that this dish was made long after he died, perhaps as a commemorative work by a much later successor, Hormizd III (reigned 457–459 CE).

Object facts

• Title: Dish with King Hormizd II or Hormizd III Hunting Lions
• Date: 400–600 CE
• Culture: Iran, Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver gilt
• Dimensions: Overall: 4.6 x 20.8 cm (1 13/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Near Eastern Art
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1962.150

A detail from the museum

Hormizd II's crown is distinct with its eagle form and topped with the traditional korymbos, a fine, bejeweled fabric that encases the top hair in a globelike fashion.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Harper, Prudence O. and Pieter Meyers. Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period, Volume One: Royal Imagery. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981). pp. 171 and 215, pl. 14.
• Shepherd, Dorothy G. "Sasanian Art in Cleveland." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 4 (1964): 66-92.
• Harper, Prudence Oliver. “The Heavenly Twins.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 5, 1965, pp. 186–95.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.