AN EGYPTIAN BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED SEKHMET, LATE PERIOD, CIRCA 664-525 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN BRONZE FIGURE OF A SEATED SEKHMET, LATE PERIOD, CIRCA 664-525 B.C. Cast in the round and seated upright, the goddess is shown with a lioness's head atop a slender female body clad in a close-fitting sheath dress, her hands resting on her thighs. The lioness face is modelled with a broad muzzle, framed by a tripartite wig that falls to the shoulders, and surmounted by a large sun disc set above the brow. The disc retains traces of a uraeus at its front. The eyes remain inlaid, one preserving a bright gilded rim that catches against the dark green-brown patina of the surrounding metal. The chest is bare above the neckline of the dress, the breasts summarily indicated, and the legs are held parallel with the feet extending forward to rest flush with the front edge of the (now lost) throne. The figure is mounted on a modern stepped wooden base. The iconography is that of Sekhmet, the leonine daughter of Ra, whose name derives from the root sḫm, meaning "the powerful one." The solar disc crowning her head identifies her explicitly as a solar goddess and the fiery eye of her father, while the lioness head signals her destructive aspect: the goddess who, in the myth of the Destruction of Mankind, was sent to annihilate humanity and was pacified only when tricked into drinking beer stained red to resemble blood. In her seated form, hands placed calmly on the thighs, she is shown in the pacified aspect, the dangerous power contained and receptive to offering. Bronzes of this type were placed in temple precincts and household shrines as votives, particularly during the annual rites intended to appease her and avert plague, of which she was believed to be both the bringer and the healer. Bronze became the dominant medium for votive statuary during the Late Period, when large numbers of small-scale divine images were produced by the lost-wax process for deposit in temple favissae and family cult use. The addition of inlaid eyes, often in gold, electrum, or coloured stone, was reserved for figures of higher quality intended for significant dedication, and the gilded eye surviving on the present figure indicates a commission above the common standard. Sekhmet was among the most frequently represented deities of the pantheon at this date, her cult supported by the priesthoods of Memphis, where she formed a triad with Ptah and Nefertem, and by the great sequence of seated Sekhmet statues installed by Amenhotep III at Karnak, which continued to shape her iconography for a millennium after their erection. This figure exemplifies the standardised yet finely worked Sekhmet bronzes of the Saite period, in which the leonine goddess is rendered in her seated, propitiated aspect with the compact frontality and clarity of profile characteristic of Twenty-sixth Dynasty production. The survival of the gilded eye inlay and the crisp modelling of the disc and wig place it above the routine votive class and align it with the better examples of temple-quality dedications from the period. Dimensions: Height 7.5 cm; height on stand 11 cm.

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