371, Lot: 1267. Estimate $500. Sold for $650. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Bronze jug. Roman, 1st-3rd centuries AD. Jug with broad shoulder and flaring rim. The base of the handle depicts a head of Eros below a palmette. Height: 16.0cm. Green patina with minor encrustation. There is a well-repaired pressure crack on the body.

From the J. S. Wagner Collection.

Similar bronze jugs with comparable, though worn, faces on the handles were found by Yigael Yadin at the Cave of the Letters. Archaeologists raised the possibility that the worn or damaged condition of the faces of these utensils may have been done by Jews in order to defaces the graven images (cf. Yadin, The Finds from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of the Letters [1963], pl. 19-23).