Egyptian sarcophagus cover, Late Dynastic Period - early Ptolemaic Period, c.350-300 BC
Limestone
Height: 57.5cm, depth: 29cm
10910 EL
Sold
Further images
The deceased is shown idealised, wearing a smooth wig tucked behind large ears, the lappets falling forwards over the shoulders, framing a delicately carved, broad, collar necklace. The face has...
The deceased is shown idealised, wearing a smooth wig tucked behind large ears, the lappets falling forwards over the shoulders, framing a delicately carved, broad, collar necklace. The face has elongated cosmetic lines to the lids and brows, the lips are plump and the cheeks rounded. Carved on the inside of the lid is the outline of a human face, echoing that of the exterior, flanked by hieroglyphs; some of the painted red guidelines are still visible. The white limestone from which it is carved is particularly fossiliferous. Without restoration.
This fragment belongs to a large anthropoid sarcophagus. The head emerges from a body whose torso and limbs were concealed by mummy wrappings; the surface would have been mainly smooth but perhaps with a few vertical lines of hieroglyphics down the front. It is part of a group of sarcophagi known as the ‘Swollen’ type. They were made from the 26th Dynasty onwards, but the rather austere lines in the current example push it to the end of the Dynastic and beginning of the Ptolemaic period.
This fragment belongs to a large anthropoid sarcophagus. The head emerges from a body whose torso and limbs were concealed by mummy wrappings; the surface would have been mainly smooth but perhaps with a few vertical lines of hieroglyphics down the front. It is part of a group of sarcophagi known as the ‘Swollen’ type. They were made from the 26th Dynasty onwards, but the rather austere lines in the current example push it to the end of the Dynastic and beginning of the Ptolemaic period.
Provenance
Private collection, Bochum, Germany; acquired prior to WWII, thence by descent
Exhibitions
Colnaghi, London, UK, curated by Alfred Kren, 'The Decay of Beauty, the Beauty of Decay', 9th October-8th November 2024Literature
Compare Mogens Jørgensen, Catalogue Egypt III, Coffin, Mummy Adornments and Mummies from the Third Intermediate, Late, Ptolemaic and the Roman Periods (1080 BC-AD 400) (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 2001), pp.254-255, no.12
Publications
Alfred Kren, The Decay of Beauty, the Beauty of Decay (London, 2024) p.211
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