A Pyramus and Thisbe Bowl in the Princeton Museum

Abstract

The Princeton Museum acquired some years ago an engraved bronze bowl with a series of scenes based on the Pyramus and Thisbe legend from the Metamorphosis by Ovid (iv. 55 ff.). This subject, popular throughout the Middle Ages, was depicted in various media, but nowhere at such length as in a group of bronze bowls that belong to the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and probably originated in the northwest of Europe. Six Thisbe bowls are now known, of which the Princeton bowl is the only example in this country.¹ The story, which is engraved on the inside of the bowls, starts out in the central medallion, continues above it, running clockwise in four three-quarter medallions. Only one other bowl contains the same set of five medallions, while a fuller set with seven occurs in four other bowls. These latter doubtless represent the original cycle of which the Princeton bowl, and another in the Museum of Bonn, are only abbreviations, having dropped two scenes that occur in the fuller set. They all show certain variations in the ornamental filling of the spandrels but have in common the framing of the medallions by inscriptions in leonine hexameter that describe the content of the scenes.