42. Little and large

This tiny pair of six-sided vases are full of detail. They are matching in style but not in detail, with each having six roundels that are mostly different. There are very few gaps in the decoration with only a few small areas needing spiral wiring for strength or otherwise.

The vase seen earlier that was Object 12 clearly comes from the same workshop or designer. The first clue is at the neck where there is a ring of large carefully formed spirals as below.

The second clue is from some of the roundels. Although the patterns within are not similar between Objects 12 and 42 except in a few small ways, the pattern on the outside is. That is, look at the wire pattern that forms the perimeter of the circles – called ‘linked tears’ in this website’s roundels imagebank. This has not appeared on any other object looked at so far.

Looking at the vases for Object 12 and Object 42 side by side the similarity is obvious in several other ways, not least the large multi-petal regular floral patterns tucked behind the roundels in the pictures below. Note that the former vase is twice the height of the latter vase, so areas that look the same are actually at quite different sizes.

The only area that does not match is on Object 42 where there is a vertical ‘fingers’ pattern at the base that we have only seen once before, on the Kouro that was Object 18. The straight lines seems a little out of place here, and might suggest that Object 42 is an earlier, less evolved design.

Object 42. Pair of vases height 9.5 cm weight 55 gm (each).

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