Property from a French Private Collection
An Egyptian Basalt Sculptor's Model or Votive Relief, 30th Dynasty/Early Ptolemaic Period, reign of Nectanebo II/Ptolemy I, 360-282 B.C.
Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 EUR
Lot Details
Description
PROPERTY FROM A FRENCH PRIVATE COLLECTION
An Egyptian Basalt Sculptor's Model or Votive Relief, 30th Dynasty/Early Ptolemaic Period, reign of Nectanebo II/Ptolemy I, 360-282 B.C.
finely carved in low relief with the head of a queen/goddess or king/god facing right and wearing a tripartite wig.
17.5 by 14.4 by 5.5 cm, 6⅞ by 5⅝ by 2⅛ in.
Probably European private collection, early 20th century (based on custom-made slanted yellow marble stand);
Françoise Schlumberger-Primat (1917-1998), Château de Grandchamp, Calvados, France, acquired in the 1960s or earlier;
by descent to the present owner.
Closely related sculptor's models in hard stone are in Paris (Louvre E11163: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010011754), Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek AE 1345, now missing: M. Mogensen, La collection égyptienne, 1930, pl. 83), and Berlin (8326: Katalog Ägyptisches Museum Berlin, 1967, no. 980).
For a similar example, this one in sunk rather than low relief, see Munich, Staatliche Sammlung Antiker Kunst, ÄS 6000: E. Kerrn Lillesø, "A Basalt Relief Block of the Egyptian Late Period", Pantheon. Internationale Zeitschrift für Kunst, vol. 33, 1975, pp. 3-9 (incl., on p. 5, a list of 11 other such reliefs known to the author; for a more recent discussion of this group see N. S. Tomoun, The Sculptor's Models of the Late and Early Ptolemaic Periods, 2005, p. 189, and individual catalogue entries).
A basalt or granite sculptor's model depicting a queen or goddess wearing a vulture headdress is in the collections of the Louvre Abu Dhabi (LAD 2012.022). It was sold at Sotheby's, New York, June 4th, 1998, lot 63 (cat. cover illus.).
