AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER JAR LATE PERIOD, 26TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 664-525 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER JAR, LATE PERIOD, 26TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 664-525 B.C. Of compressed globular form, the body rising from a rounded base to a wide shoulder and drawn in sharply to a short cylindrical neck finished with a thickened, flattened rim. The walls are hollowed evenly and the exterior worked to a smooth, gently lustrous surface that reveals the natural banding of the stone. The pale, honey-cream ground is veined and clouded with russet and ochre inclusions, the iron-rich staining concentrated in irregular patches across the shoulder and lower body, a pattern partly inherent to the stone and partly acquired through long burial. The vessel is undecorated, its character resting entirely on profile and material. The proportions, the squat low-slung body set against the upright collar of the neck, belong to a well-established cosmetic and unguent-jar tradition. Vessels of this scale and form were intended to contain precious oils, scented unguents, or eye-paints, the narrow mouth limiting evaporation and controlling the dispensing of viscous contents. The thickened rim would have received a flat stone or linen-and-mud sealing. The stone itself, properly Egyptian calcite-alabaster and known in antiquity from the quarries at Hatnub and Wadi Gerrawi, carried meaning beyond its workable softness and translucency. Calcite was associated with purity and with the solar cult, and from the Old Kingdom onwards it was the preferred material for ritual and funerary vessels containing substances offered to the gods or required by the deceased. Its slow accretion in limestone caves was understood as a product of the earth's living processes, and the warm translucency of a thin-walled vessel held to the light gave the material a quality distinct from ordinary stone. By the Saite period, the 26th Dynasty revival of Old and Middle Kingdom forms returned alabaster cosmetic and offering jars to prominence as part of a wider archaising programme in funerary equipment. This jar exemplifies the restrained, archaising aesthetic of Saite stoneworking, in which earlier vessel profiles are reproduced with careful proportion and a high standard of finish, the beauty of the calcite itself carrying the work in the absence of applied ornament. It belongs to a class of small luxury containers that bridge daily cosmetic use and funerary offering, and its survival in this state preserves both the sculptor's profile and the long mineral history written into the surface of the stone. Width: 12cm Height: 7cm

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