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LOT 0029
Coptic Marble Liturgical Vessel Fragment with Inscription
6TH CENTURY A.D.
2 1/8 in. (87 grams, 55 mm).
Tongue-shaped with low rounded pad on the underside, raised edge with low-relief decoration of grape vines and leaves, the edge with pairs of opposing doves eating grapes; dedicatory Demotic inscription on the underside.
ProvenanceAcquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12575-232108.
See Atalla, N.S., Coptic Art, Sculptures, Architecture, L'Art Copte, II, Cairo, 1989, figs. pp.109ff., for similar carved interlaces; Rutschowscaya, M.H., Benazeth, D., L’Art Copte en Égypte, 2000 ans de Christianisme, Paris, 2000, figs.109-118; Poupaki, E., ‘Early Byzantine Marble Vases from Kos Island, Dodecanese, Greece’ in Diamanti, C., Vassiliou A. (eds.), Eν Σοφίᾳ μαθητεύσαντες, Essays in Byzantine Material Culture and Society in Honour of Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, Oxford, 2019, figs.2-3, for a possible parallel.
FootnotesThese vessels were used as liturgical objects for church offerings or ritual, and were extensively employed from late antiquity in ecclesiastical contexts.
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LOT 0029
Coptic Marble Liturgical Vessel Fragment with Inscription
Estimate £1,200 - 1,700€1,390 - 1,970 (for guidance only)$1,620 - 2,300 (for guidance only)
Opening Bid
£667 (EUR 773; USD 900) ‡+BP*
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Produced between February 1802 and 1830 on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte; published between 1809 and 1828. Just 1,000 copies were distributed to various institutions, printed on laid paper with an 'Égypte ancienne et moderne' watermark. The book is subtitled Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’Armée française, publié par les ordres de Sa Majesté l’Empereur Napoléon le Grand (Gathering of observations and discoveries which were made in Egypt during the expedition of the French army, published on the orders of His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon the Great). It was the world's first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to the remains of ancient Egypt. The plates of this book are the first to present the archaeological sites of Thebes (Luxor). The Philae temple complex was one of the monuments moved during the construction of the Aswan High Dam. It was carefully dismantled piece by piece and reassembled on the island of Agilkia.