AN EGYPTIAN RED JASPER RAM-SHAPED COSMETIC DISH, NEW KINGDOM TO LATE PERIOD, CIRCA 1388-332 B.C. OR

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN RED JASPER RAM-SHAPED COSMETIC DISH, NEW KINGDOM TO LATE PERIOD, CIRCA 1388-332 B.C. OR LATER Carved in the round from a single block of red jasper mottled with ochreous and yellow inclusions, the vessel takes the form of a recumbent ram with head raised and turned slightly upward. The horns curl tightly against the sides of the head in deeply ribbed spirals, terminating beside the muzzle. The eyes are almond-shaped and rimmed in low relief, the ears set back against the curl of the horns, and a collar of incised hatching encircles the neck. The body is hollowed from above to form the shallow basin of the dish, the rounded flanks polished to a high lustre that catches the natural banding of the stone. Below, the legs are rendered as openwork supports, folded beneath the body and articulated with incised bands suggesting hooves and fetlocks, the tail curling against the right haunch. The ram in pharaonic iconography is associated above all with Amun, whose principal sacred animal was the curl-horned ram of the Ovis aries platyura form, and with Khnum, the ram-headed creator god of Elephantine. The ram's identification with virility, generative power, and royal authority made it one of the most enduring divine animals of the Egyptian pantheon, appearing on temple avenues, votive bronzes, amulets, and luxury objects throughout the New Kingdom and later. A cosmetic vessel in this form would have carried protective and regenerative associations appropriate to its contents, whether kohl, scented unguent, or pigment. Red jasper held particular significance in Egyptian material culture. Mined in the Eastern Desert, it was associated with blood, life, and the protective power of the goddess Isis, and is named in Chapter 156 of the Book of the Dead as the stone of the tyet amulet. Its use for a finely worked cosmetic vessel signals a commission of high status, since hardstone carving on this scale required both access to the material and the lapidary skill to hollow and polish a form of such complexity. The combination of red jasper with ram iconography brings together two strands of solar and regenerative symbolism that would have been immediately legible to an Egyptian viewer. The dating range reflects the long continuity of the type. Ram-form cosmetic vessels are known from the New Kingdom onward, and the form was revived and reproduced into the Late Period and beyond, with later versions sometimes drawing on earlier prototypes. The qualified date supplied by the cataloguer ("or later") should be retained pending further technical examination. This vessel exemplifies the Egyptian tradition of zoomorphic hardstone cosmetic containers, in which the choice of stone, the identity of the animal, and the function of the object are bound together as a single symbolic programme. The selection of red jasper for a ram-form dish is not decorative but iconographic, uniting the protective stone of Isis with the generative animal of Amun in an object intended for daily, intimate use. Length: 23cm

图片