Spouted Pitcher (300–600 CE): Art, History and Details

Spouted Pitcher (300–600 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A large quantity of tableware survives from the Roman Empire, including this piece from Antioch and the Eastern Mediterranean. Most of the recovered groups of silver seem to have been hoards concealed during times of trouble. A complete table service, called a ministerium in Latin and a synthesis in Greek, consisted of silver for eating and drinking: trays, platters, plates, dishes, spoons, pepper dispensers, goblets, pitchers, ladles, and bowls. The god of wine, Dionysos, was frequently depicted on drinking and eating vessels.

Object facts

• Title: Spouted Pitcher
• Date: 300–600 CE
• Culture: Byzantium, Syria(?), Byzantine period
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver
• Dimensions: Diameter: 5.8 cm (2 5/16 in.); Overall: 10.8 x 18.8 cm (4 1/4 x 7 3/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1956.32

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Milliken, William. "Early Byzantine Silver." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 45, no. 3 (March 1958): 35-40.

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.