AN EGYPTIAN AGATE HIPPOPOTAMUS LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI, 664-525 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN AGATE HIPPOPOTAMUS, LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI, 664-525 B.C. Carved in the round from a single piece of banded agate, the animal stands foursquare on four short legs, the head lowered and thrust forward in the characteristic posture of the hippopotamus at rest. The body is compact and heavy, with a broad rounded back sloping gently to the haunches, the belly close to the ground and the short tail indicated in low relief along the rear. The muzzle is blunt and broad, terminating in a pair of prominent nostrils, with the eyes rendered as small raised bosses set high on the skull and the ears lightly carved behind them. Musculature is treated summarily, the sculptor relying on the volumes of the stone rather than surface detail to convey the mass of the beast. The natural banding of the agate runs across the flanks in warm honey, amber and translucent tones, with darker inclusions concentrated at the muzzle and along the underside. The hippopotamus occupied an ambivalent position in Egyptian thought. As a creature of the Nile marshes it was both feared for its destructiveness and revered as a manifestation of divine power. The male hippopotamus was associated with Seth and the disorder of the inundation, and was accordingly a legitimate quarry in royal hunting scenes from the Old Kingdom onward. The female, by contrast, was identified with Taweret, protectress of women in childbirth and guardian of the household, whose amuletic image is among the most widely produced in Egyptian religious practice. Small figures of the animal, whether faience, stone or glass, functioned as apotropaic objects, harnessing the strength of the creature while neutralising its danger. The choice of agate is significant. Hardstones such as agate, carnelian and chalcedony were reserved for objects of higher status than the more ubiquitous faience hippopotami familiar from Middle Kingdom tombs, since their working required specialist lapidary skill and access to imported or carefully selected material. Banded agates in particular were prized for the way the natural stratification of the stone could be exploited to model the volumes of a figure, and were used from the Late Period onward for amulets, seal-stones and small figural sculpture of the finer quality. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty saw a broad revival of archaising forms in the Saite ateliers, and small animal figures in hardstone are a recognised product of this cultural programme. This figure exemplifies the Saite taste for compact hardstone animal sculpture in which the character of the stone is allowed to carry as much of the effect as the carving itself. The reduction of anatomical detail to essential volumes, combined with the exploitation of the agate's natural banding across the body, places the piece within the finer register of Late Period lapidary production, where amuletic function and connoisseurial appreciation of material coincide. Dimensions: Length: 5.5cm

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