Artwork Page for The Vicarello Goblet

Details / Information for The Vicarello Goblet

The Vicarello Goblet

25 BCE–25 CE

Italy, Vicarello (ancient Aquae Apollinares), Roman, Augustan period

Medium
silver
Measurements
Overall: 12.2 x 7.8 cm (4 13/16 x 3 1/16 in.)
Weight: 15.649 g (0.55 oz.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1966.371
Public Domain
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Location
103 Roman
Print
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Did You Know?

This silver cup was found north of Rome at Vicarello (ancient Aquae Apollinares), probably in 1862.

Description

This masterpiece of the Roman silversmith’s art is exquisitely worked in relief. The multifigure scene centers on a rustic shrine of the ithyphallic fertility god Priapus, son of Dionysos. He takes the form of a stylized boundary marker atop a column, where a woman seems to have brought him to life by touching him. To the left sits a table with votive offerings to the god. Flanking the shrine are a satyr and maenad, dancing ecstatically.
A silver goblet shaped like a cylinder narrows slightly at the base and depicts a seminude woman seated in profile, facing our left and reaching with both arms to grasp the chin and forehead of a person leaning back and extending from the top of a column. Branches arc overhead and a table with various vessels sits left of the column. Cracks split the metal on either side of the scene, some pieces broken away.

The Vicarello Goblet

25 BCE–25 CE

Italy, Vicarello (ancient Aquae Apollinares), Roman, Augustan period

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