30. STATuETTE Of A KNEElING PHARAOH IN A WHITE CROWN Bronze 6 7/8 x 2 1/8 x 2 5/16 in. 17.5 x 5.4 x 5.9 cm Dynasty XXVI FGA-ARCH-EG-12 PROVENANCE: Sotheby s London, 28th May 1883, lot no. 46 Lt. Gen. A. H. L.-F. Pitt-Rivers (1827 1900) Collection, Farnham, United Kingdom Christie s London, 12th December 1990, sale 4432, lot no. 226 EXHIBITIONS: Reflets du divin 2001 Ancient Egypt Art & Magic 2011 PUBLICATIONS: PITT-RIVERS 1882 1883, vol. I, p. 223, lot 46 CHAPPAZ and CHAMAY 2001, p. 56, no. 41 HILL 2004, pp. 195 196, pl. 54, no. 127 BIANCHI 2011, pp. 182 183, no. 69 This bronze statuette depicts a pharaoh kneeling on the ground with his arms bent at the elbow and lowered so that his hands rest on his thighs. He is shown wearing a striated kilt, secured at the waist with an ornamented belt. He wears a six-stranded broad collar around his neck and the White Crown of Upper Egypt, once fronted by a now missing uraeus, or sacred cobra. The features of his face are carefully modeled as are his fingers and toes to the point of representing the nails themselves. His wasp-waisted torso is designed in bipartition with both sides of the sternal notch composed as mirror images of one another. As a result the rib cage is suppressed so that the pectoral regions and lower abdomen coalesce into one form. The belt of his kilt rides low on his hips and rests beneath a deeply recessed almost tear-drop-shaped navel. The gesture of his hands, held vertically with palms open and facing each other and with their fingers close together suggest that the statuette was once supporting a now missing attribute which may either have been a divine image or a piece of religious furniture in the form of a shrine, perhaps with a divine image within. The elliptical depression in the center of the chest at the level of the biceps appears to be a footprint created at the point of contact or attachment between this attribute and the statuette. The tang at the bottom of the feet indicates that this object was originally affixed to a larger base forming part of a group composition, perhaps kneeling before a deity or inserted into the deck of a ceremonial boat carried in religious processions. Bronze representations of pharaohs without accompanying inscriptions designed with idealizing physiognomic features are notoriously difficult to date. The somewhat round head of this example and the observation that the crown rests very low on the forehead where it almost touches the eyebrows invites comparison with monumental stone sculpture inscribed for pharaohs of Dynasty XXVI, to which period this statuette is suggested to date. 126
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31. large STATuETTE Of THE APIS Bull Bronze with white and black stone inlays 6 5/16 x 2 9/16 x 6 5/16 in. 16 x 6.5 x 16 cm Dynasty XXVI FGA-ARCH-EG-371 PROVENANCE: Mrs. Elias-Vaes Collection, early 1970s Christie s London, 29th April 2010, sale 5487, lot no. 185 This unusually large, cast bronze statuette of a bull depicts the animal striding forward on a rectangular, integral base. Its proper right eye still retains its original inlays. Its body is ornamented with motifs conforming in their general design to the physical characteristics which each Apis bull was ideally required to exhibit. The identification of this image as a depiction of that sacred animal is assured. Those characteristics which can be readily captured in the casting of bronze include a diamond-shaped blaze on the forehead, an image of a vulture on the back, and double hairs on its tail. This object exhibits additional motifs including both a winged scarab and a tasseled blanket, the crossing-hatching ornamentation of which suggests an embroidered fabric, and a broad collar. His head is adorned with a sun disc fronted by a uraeus. EXHIBITION: Ancient Egypt Art & Magic 2011 PUBLICATION: BIANCHI 2011, pp. 214 215, no. 85 COMPARE: Oxford, The Ashmolean Museum, inv. no. 12879.332: MALEK 1999, pp. 401 410 WEISS 2012, pp. 55 56 and pp. 293 294, Type T 28, pl. 47a j The Apis bull was a hypostasis of the creator god of Memphis, and was often regarded as that god s herald. Such bronze statuettes are suggested to have been votive offerings deposited in sanctuaries by pilgrims either asking for prayers to be fulfilled or in thanksgiving for prayers having been answered. This statuette appears to be a virtual clone, but on a smaller scale, of a second in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The details on both of these objects are so correspondingly close, particularly in the strict correspondence and congruence of all of the incised motifs, that one can tentatively suggest they are contemporary and might even have been created in one and the same atelier using what would appear to have been the same pattern book. The example in Oxford is inscribed for an official who served in the court of a daughter of Pharaoh Psametik I, and may very well have been created in a royal atelier. The correspondences it shares with this objects suggest that both are contemporary, and may have been likewise produced in the same royal atelier. 128
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32. MENAT AEGIS Bronze with painted, limestone inlaid eyes menat: 6 3/8 x 4 11/16 x 1 3/8 in.; 16.2 x 11.9 x 3.5 cm; aegis: 5 9/16 x 2 3/4 x 1 7/16 in. 14.1 x 7 x 1.1 cm Dynasty XXVI FGA-ARCH-EG-409 PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Germany, purchased in the 1950s Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London, 10th December 2010, lot no. 12 PUBLICATION: CHAPPAZ 2012, pp. 53 55, fig. 13 COMPARE: ROEDER 1956, pl. 64d, also g and i for the menat A close parallel is illustrated in KAISER 1967, nos 821 822. For a related example, see PAGE-GASSER and WIESE 1997, pp. 256 259, no. 171B. A similarly inlaid aegis, but with the head of Mut, is illustrated in AUBERT and AUBERT 2001, pl. 21; pl. 19 illustrates a head of Isis but without the extensive inlays. WEISS 2012, pp. 367 369, Kragenprotomen, pl. 63c e and p. 375, pl. 64d The design of this ritual object combines several separately cast objects, a menat, or counterpose, and an aegis, from the Greek word for shield here in the form of a broad collar surmounted by a human, female head of a goddess, whose eyes are inlaid with limestone painted black to indicate the pupils. She wears a segmented, tripartite wig, on top of which is a separately cast modius, or circlet, adorned with uraei, or cobras. The modius serves as the anchor for a pair of cow horns framing a sun disc. Two consoles, striated but otherwise unarticulated, frame the tripartite wig at the horizontal, top edge of the aegis proper, which is ornamented with two, thin bands, the top with vertical striations, the bottom with incised, rotated chevron patterns, which intersect five concentric circles of floral elements representing the traditional broad collar associated with objects of this type. A wadjet, or sacred eye, forms the central motif of this broad collar. To judge from the four ornamented lines above it, one might suggest that the wadjet-eye is an amulet suspended from a second, multiple-stranded necklace. The menat itself is of traditional form featuring a shaft by which the object was held in the hand, terminating below in a circular element. A pair of hooded uraei, a sun disc on their heads, rests on the top of that element attached to the handle, facing outward. The circular element itself is adorned with a depiction of a falcon on a shrine, facing right, over a neb-sign ornemented with ripples of water. The image is to be identified as Horus in Chemmis. The handle itself is decorated with a figure of a standing goddess to the right wearing a tightly fitting sheath, and a wig similar to that worn by the goddess on the aegis. This is similarly adorned with a pair of cow s horns framing a sun disc. The goddess holds an ankh-sign in her lowered hand and a papyrus scepter, a typical attribute for goddesses, in her raised hand. She would appear to be standing within a shrine. The hieroglyphs identify the goddess as, Isis, the Great, the mother of the god. Inscription p. 271 130
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