Fish Plate

350-325 BCE

Probably by the Heligoland Painter
Greek; Campania, Italy

Decorated tableware enlivened festive meals. This red-figure plate was used, as its decoration suggests, for serving seafood, a staple of the Mediterranean diet. Tasty juices pooled in the central concavity, which may also have contained sauces.

Status: On View, Gallery 151
Department: Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Fish Plate
Place: Campania (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 350 BCE–325 BCE
Medium: terracotta, red-figure
Dimensions: 4.9 × 24.6 × 24.6 cm (1 15/16 × 9 5/8 × 9 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Yun Soo Lim Vermeule
Reference Number: 2002.546
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/160175/manifest.json

Sotheby & Co., London, sale cat. (Sotheby’s, London, April 24, 1967), lot 160.
I. McPhee & A.D. Trendall, Greek Red-figured Fish-plates (Basel: Vereinigung d. Freunde Antiker Kunst, 1987), p. 96, no. IID/40, pl. 31f.
J. Padgett, E. Vermeule, et al., Vase-Painting in Italy (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1993), pp. 167-168, no. 87 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report: 2002 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2002), n.p.

Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1968 to at least 1993.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - present.

Francesco Fienga (1881-1937), Nocera Inferiore, Salerno, Italy. Sold, Sotheby’s, London, April 24, 1967, lot 160. Cornelius Comstock Vermeule III, Boston, on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1968 until at least 1993 [Padgett, Vermeule, et al., 1993, 167-168; and according to correspondence dated January 30,2023, copy in curatorial object file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2002.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.