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LOT 0507
Egyptian Bronze Goddess Bastet as Seated Cat
LATE PERIOD-PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C.
4 in. (137 grams total, 10 cm high including stand).
A bronze figure of the cat goddess Bastet, squatting poised and alert with her tail wrapped close to right side of her body, seated on a tongue-shaped base, short lug below; accompanied by a custom-made display base.
ProvenanceAcquired 1980s.
Private collection of L.H., Staffordshire, UK.
Property of a Sussex, UK, teacher.
Cf. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession numbers 2021.41.166 and 44.4.9, for similar; Tiribilli, E., The bronze figurines of the Petrie Museum from 2000 BC to AD 400, London, 2018, p.190, no.268, for similar.
FootnotesBastet was a powerful goddess of Lower Egypt, one who was protective and could bring about great prosperity.
Cat statuettes were among some of the most common zoomorphic dedications of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods. Small statuettes like this one would have been dedicated as offerings to temples or deposited in catacombs alongside cat mummies, as at the extensive catacombs at Bubastis and Saqqara. Sometimes larger hollow examples held a cat mummy inside.
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Egyptian Offering Cup Fragment Group
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A group of four blue glass fragments from offering cups. 35 grams total, 36-48 mm
From a UK private collection, 1975-1978. -
Egyptian Ramesses III Period Scaraboid
New Kingdom, 1293-1240 B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £143
A steatite scarab depicted in flight, with simple detailing to the body and legs; geometric motif engraved to base; pierced for suspension. 6.76 grams, 26 mm
From an old UK collection. From the private collection of Alf Baxendale (1941-2016) part 2, keen Egyptologist, member of the Egyptology Society, trustee of the Amarna Trust; thence by descent. Accompanied by an identification display card. Accompanied by a copy of his obituary published in Horizon, The Amarna Project and Amarna Trust newsletter, Issue 18, 2017, p.21, by Barry John Kemp, CBE, FBA, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge and directing excavations at Amarna in Egypt. -
Coptic Kohl Container
6th-7th century A.D.Estimate: £1,200 - 1,700 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £600
A heavily carved wooden kohl vessel, tubular with pierced lateral flanges and rectangular base with a stub foot to each corner; with old collector's label reading 'Coptic kohol container VI-VIII C. OFRA10P / Q Louvre Cat. des Bois de l'Egypte Copte, Paris 1986 no.39-41'. 129 grams, 19.5 cm
Acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Important North West London collection.
