TimeLine Auctions Limited
Lot 136
20th century AD. A silver cup with deep bowl on an ornamented stem with repoussé decoration to the outer face depicting two male couples engaging in coitus, with a slave boy in the background observing the scene from behind the door; a lyre, double-flute, and draperies to the background; parcel-gilt rim and interior to the bowl; accompanied with a presentation box with text to the inner lid 'The Warren Cup Replica'. The silver Roman drinking vessel known as the Warren Cup dates from the reign of Nero in the first century A.D. Discovered in the late nineteenth century, it was soon purchased by E.P.Warren (1861-1928), a wealthy American anglophile and the pre-eminent collector of antiquities in his day. Upon Warren's death, no museum dared acquire or exhibit the cup, and in 1953 it was denied entry into the US. The cup has recently been the subject of widespread scholarly interest because of its unique place in the history of sexuality, and it is now on permanent exhibition in the Greek and Roman department of the British Museum, where it can assume its rightful place in art history. Accompanied by a copy of the publication Williams, D. The Warren Cup, The British Museum Press, 2006. 562 grams, 11.5cm (4 1/2"). From an important London, W1, collection; acquired 1960-1980s. Possibly one of only six known silver replicas of the cup known to exist. Just one replica was ordered by Warren, which is now in the Ashmolean museum, Oxford, U.K. The cup would have formed part of a silver tableware used for banquets, an essential part of any wealthy Roman home. The cup finds parallels in ceramic Arretine cups that portray similar scenes of homosexual lovemaking. The imagery is possibly influenced by Greek examples that appear on vases and other pottery of the Classical period, and which emulate the ideal of youthful beauty and the practice of younger males being taken as lovers by older males. This was not just for sexual gratification, but also a form of sponsorship in which the youth received an informal education and guardianship. In the ancient world there were no words for homosexual and heterosexual and people could take lovers of any sex. In the Roman world it was the norm for a male to be the dominant partner, usually with a slave; for a Roman male to be the passive partner was seen as demeaning and against the concepts of the male dominated society. Images like this were not unusual in the Roman world. Some of the boys on this cup are underage by today's standards, but the Romans, like the Greeks, tolerated relationships between older and younger men. Relationships between men were part of Greek and Roman culture, from slaves to emperors, most famously the emperor Hadrian and his Greek lover, Antinous. Today such ancient images remind us that the way societies view sexuality is never fixed. [A video of this lot is available on the TimeLine Auctions website] Extremely fine condition.
