Lid Decorated with Two Horse Heads
7th century BCE
Description
The top of this oblong lid is decorated with two opposing horse heads. The lid is flat and undecorated on the top, with a rim around the edge, straight and thin, and beveled in slightly from the top. It is concave on the underside with two holes under the area where the horse heads are, penetrating up to the top behind the horses’ necks. The horse heads are highly stylized and flat, with molded ears, cylindrical muzzles, and raised ridges down the back of the necks to represent manes. The holes through the neck would help attach the lid to a vessel. The lid fits on vessel 1969.177.14; the two pieces may have come to the museum together, with the lid subsequently being separated and mislabeled.
Dimensions
2.6 x 2.6 x 2.3 cm (1 x 1 x 7/8 in.)
Provenance
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1920. Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).
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