COMPLETE EGYPTIAN MALE SARCOPHAGUS

拍品描述

Late Period to Ptolemaic Period, Ca. 450 - 300 BC. A complete male sarcophagus of sycamore fig wood, stuccoed and painted, the exterior coated with a black, bituminous-looking layer upon which the polychromy is applied, with inscriptions and details of the beard and wig painted yellow and the decoration highlighted with white. The coffin is of mummiform type with a pedestal and a proportionally large head. A system of tenons and mortises, cut into the thickness of the sides, secures the coffin and lid. The decoration extends over the exterior while the interior is left in its natural state. The lid presents an elongated face with a relatively thin nose and well-shaped nostrils, rounded chin, and large rounded eyes with black iris against white of the pupil, framed by a three-part striped wig with prominent ears, the rounded wig slightly hollowed at the shoulders and the horizontal base of the fringe marked by a dotted line in yellow, with a thin curved braided beard attached to the chin. A multi-tiered usekh collar covers the chest, alternating flowers and beads, and the remaining surface is filled with a structured, dense, symmetrical arrangement of worship scenes, deities, and texts in rapid compact script, including the owner's name and his parents' names occupying around a third of the inscriptions alongside offering formulae and invocations. At the centre of the torso, a winged Nut spreads her wings, flanked by superimposed vignettes in two registers to left and right of a goddess, the drawing partially erased, with vignettes below of the four sons of Horus, Imsety, Hapi, Duamutef, and Qebehsenuef. The feet show reversed text and decoration facing the front, with Anubis in mirrored form as a jackal lying on a canopic chest, while the back shows the goddess of the West, identified by a falcon on her headdress and an ostrich feather, the body presented by the goddess of the West and received by the sky goddess. For a similar type see Chr. Ziegler, 2012, Tombs Q,Q1c.01 Ph.538, p. 292. Size: 1850mm x 490mm; Weight: 50kg Provenance: UK private collection; Ex-collection of Willard Vine Clerk Antiques and Fine Art, Malden Bridge, New York; Formerly in a Paris collection of Mr. F.A., acquired in the 1970s. This item has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database and comes with a confirmation letter.This piece is accompanied by an authentication report from Simone Musso, consultant curator for Egyptian antiquities at the Stibbert Museum, Florence, Italy, member of the Nuri Archaeological Expedition.

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