- Title
- Plaque
- Date Made
- 7th century
- Medium
- Ivory
- Dimensions
- 4 1/8 × 1 9/16 × 3/8 in. (10.5 × 4 × 1 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.71.73.30
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
The Late Antique desire for luxury objects carved from ivory or bone carried on with the advent of Islam, and this small bone plaque is one example of the continuing craft. Ivory and bone were used to make containers, frames, and other portable objects, but a smaller carved piece like this one may have been used as embellishment on furniture or a box. The scrolling grapevine, here rendered in high relief, was a popular motif throughout the Mediterranean. In Hellenic times, it spread through references to the Greek god Dionysus, then found new relevance in other cultures such as Sasanian Iran and later among the early Christians and Muslims in the eastern Mediterranean.
2024
- Selected Bibliography
- Berg, Phil. Man Came This Way: Objects from the Phil Berg Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971.
