AN EGYPTIAN SERPENTINE JUG NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII-XX, 1550-1070 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN SERPENTINE JUG, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII-XX, 1550-1070 B.C. Of globular body rising from a low, moulded disc foot to a tall cylindrical neck and flaring rim, the vessel is fitted with a single strap handle springing from the shoulder and rejoining just below the rim. The stone is worked to a fine, even wall and polished to a soft lustre, the surface revealing the natural mottling of the serpentine in tones of dark umber, olive, and near-black, with paler veining coursing across the body. The foot is neatly turned, the rim finished with a flat upper face and rounded lip, and the handle carved from the same block rather than applied. The form belongs to the family of small stone jugs and juglets produced in Egyptian palace and temple workshops during the New Kingdom, a shape ultimately drawn from ceramic and metal prototypes but here translated into hardstone. The proportions, with the tall neck balanced against the round belly, and the careful articulation of foot and rim, are characteristic of the refined stoneworking tradition that flourished under the Eighteenth Dynasty and continued into the Ramesside period. Serpentine was among the harder stones favoured by Egyptian lapidaries for luxury vessels, alongside diorite, breccia, and anorthosite gneiss. Unlike the softer calcite alabaster used for the bulk of New Kingdom cosmetic and unguent containers, serpentine required prolonged grinding and polishing with abrasives, and its use marks a vessel out as a costly commission. Its dark, cloudy figure was prized in Egyptian aesthetics for its resemblance to more exotic imported stones, and vessels of this material are recovered principally from elite burials and temple deposits, where they served as containers for scented oils, unguents, and ritual liquids. The single-handled jug form, in particular, is associated with the pouring of libations, and the scale of the present piece is consistent with such a use rather than with domestic function. This jug exemplifies the New Kingdom stoneworker's command of hard, figured material at small scale, where the sculptural logic of a ceramic pouring vessel is preserved without compromise in a stone that resists rapid working. Vessels of this type stand at the point where Egyptian lapidary tradition, established since the Predynastic, meets the more cosmopolitan luxury culture of the imperial New Kingdom. Dimensions: Height: 15cm

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