Fish Plate

CC0 Public Domain Designation

400-370 BCE

Greek; Athens

This footed plate was made to serve succulent morsels of grilled seafood, like the fish, mollusks, and other marine creatures that are painted on its surface. Greece and Italy are peninsulas projecting into seas brimming with marine life. A primary source of protein, seafood was a basic staple of the ancient Mediterranean diet; it remains so today.

Keen observers of their subjects, ancient vase painters so accurately captured the shapes and markings of the fish they depicted that it is possible to identify most of them by species. This example is decorated with two pairs of large fish. A scallop attached to an outer band of a decorative pattern in the center separates a gilt head, on the left, from a fish known as king of the mullets, on the right. Opposite them is a lettered perch confronting a scorpion fish. Details of their anatomy were drawn with dilute glaze. Around them are shells, a small fish, and other creatures. A running wave pattern around the central concavity, with a gently sloped floor for collecting juices or serving sauces, recalls the sea, the source of the bounty.

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

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Fish Plate
Place: Athens (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.: 400 BCE–370 BCE
Medium: terracotta, red-figure
Dimensions: 5.1 × 34 × 34 cm (2 × 13 3/8 × 13 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Philip D. Armour and Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1889.98
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/255/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Preliminary Catalogue of Metal Work, Graeco-Italian Vases, and Antiquities, December 9, 1889 (Chicago: Early and Halla Printing Company, 1889), p. 44, no. 354.
E.F. Bloedow and C. Björk, “An Apulian Red-Figure Fish-Plate”, in P. Brind’Amour and P. Senay (eds.), Mélanges offerts en hommage à Étienne Gareau (Ottowa 1982), p. 124, fig. 22.
Ian McPhee and Arthur Dale Trendall, Greek Red-Figured Fish-Plates, Beiheft zur Halbjahresschrift Antike Kunst, 14 (Vereinigung d. Freunde Antiker Kunst, 1987), p. 49, no. 140, pl. 10d-e and color plate A, fig. 1.
N. Kunisch, Griechische Fischteller: Natur und Bild (Berlin: Mann, 1989), pp. 77, 79-81, 88, 90-91, fig. 15.
Martin Robertson, The Art of Vase-painting in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 275, fig. 275.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 18.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
The 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 (excluding February 2014 -March 2015).
Omaha, NE, Joslyn Art Museum, Poseidon and the Sea: Myth, Cult, and Daily Life, February 6 - May 11, 2014 ; traveled to Florida, Tampa Museum of Art, June 14 - November 30, 2014, and Hanover, NH, Hood Museum of Art, January 17, 2015 - March 15, 2015.

Pio Marinangeli, Rome; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1889; price reimbursed by Charles Hutchinson and Philip D. Armour, 1889.

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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.