Details

LOT 0011

Egyptian Bronze Cat Head with Incised Scarab

LATE PERIOD, 664-332 B.C.

2 1/4 in. (92.5 grams, 58 mm).

The head of goddess Bastet modelled in the round with alert ears and eyes, fine whisker detailing to the gently elongated muzzle, hair detailing to the inner edges of the ears and the lower outer edges pierced to accept separate earrings, incised scarab on the top of the head.

Provenance

Elizabeth Helene Demarest Osten Driesen (1892-1931).
Given as a gift to her granddaughter, Lady Annabel Sutherland, by descent in the late 1960s.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12762-237137.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

Cf. Berlev, O. and Hodjash, S., Catalogue of Monuments of Ancient Egypt: From the Museums of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Bielorussia, Caucasus, Middle Asia and the Baltic States, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 17, Fribourg/Göttingen, 1998, pl. 90 VI.34, for a similar example; Waziry, M., Vestiges of Ancient Egypt: The Bubasteion Votive Cachette at Saqqara, Houston, 2023, p. 68, no. 19, for a recently excavated wooden cat coffin with a bronze head still in place.

Footnotes

In ancient Egypt, the cat was venerated as the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet, whose principal cult centre was Bubastis in the Nile Delta. Although cats were once part of folk practice, their veneration as part of formal cults spread across Egypt during the Late Period. Bastet was closely linked to lion-headed goddesses like Sekhmet, Tefnut, and Pakhet, and the cat itself became associated with solar imagery: the Book of the Dead portrays the sun god as a Great Cat vanquishing Apophis beneath the sacred Ished Tree. The cat could also embody the Eye of the Sun or, more often in Bastet’s case, the Eye of the Moon. Mummified cats were frequently dedicated as votive offerings, and some of their feline-shaped coffins were adorned with finely crafted bronze heads to enhance their divine likeness.