AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET OF A HARE, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, CIRCA 1353-1336 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET OF A HARE, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, CIRCA 1353-1336 B.C. Modelled in the round as a hare in recumbent pose upon a rectangular plinth, the body compact with hindquarters gathered beneath, the forelegs extended along the base, and the head raised alert. The long ears are laid back along the spine in low relief, terminating just short of the haunches. A small suspension loop rises from the shoulders behind the ears, pierced transversely for cord. The glaze is a bright turquoise-green of even tone, with a network of fine crazing across the surface and light earthen encrustation gathered in the recesses of the modelling and along the underside of the base. The hare in Egyptian iconography is associated with alertness, swiftness, and vigilance, qualities derived from observation of the living animal — its open-eyed sleep, its rapid flight, its capacity to reproduce with speed. As an amuletic subject the hare is connected to the goddess Wenut of the fifteenth Upper Egyptian nome, whose cult centre was at Hermopolis, and more broadly to the protective and regenerative properties the animal was thought to confer upon its wearer. The pierced suspension loop indicates that the piece was strung and worn in life, or placed among the wrappings of the deceased, where such amulets served to extend their protective function into the afterlife. The medium itself carries meaning. Egyptian faience, a glazed non-clay ceramic of powdered quartz, was understood as a material of regeneration and rebirth, its luminous blue-green surface associated with the waters of the Nile, with vegetation, and with the renewal of life. The colour was not incidental but symbolic, and the choice of faience for a protective amulet of this kind aligned material and function: the substance itself was thought to participate in the amulet's efficacy. Small faience amulets of animals proliferated during the New Kingdom, produced in quantity for both the living and the dead, and the hare is among the recognised, though less frequently encountered, animal subjects of the type. This amulet exemplifies the modelling economy of Dynasty XVIII faience production, where the animal is reduced to its essential silhouette, the ears and haunches summarised in bold planes, and the whole made legible in miniature. The bright turquoise glaze and the precise integration of suspension loop into the profile place it within the refined amuletic output of the Amarna horizon, when small faience objects reached a particular clarity of form. Dimensions: Length 2.9 cm

图片