Steelyard Weight with a Bust of a Byzantine Empress and a Hook

Unknown

400–450 · Copper alloy, filled with lead, brass hook · Medieval Art

Steelyard weights often took the shape of busts of Byzantine empresses. This unusually detailed image may depict an empress of the Theodosian dynasty, which ruled from 379 to 450. The weight—itself about five pounds, or seven Byzantine litrae—would have been used for heavier goods.

Artist

Unknown

Date

400–450

Medium

Copper alloy, filled with lead, brass hook

Culture

Byzantine

Department

Medieval Art

Credit line

Purchase, Gifts of J. Pierpont Morgan, Mrs. Robert J. Levy, Mr. and Mrs. Frederic B. Pratt, George Blumenthal, Coudert Brothers and Mrs. Lucy W. Drexel, by exchange; Bequest of George Blumenthal and Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, by exchange; and Rogers Fund, 1980