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LOT 0520
Egyptian Faience Bastet Cat Amulet Collection
NEW KINGDOM, 1550-1070 B.C. AND LATER
1 7/8 - 2 in. (83 grams total, 47-52 mm including stands).
Pale yellow, turquoise, and blue faience seated cat figures, each shown on a base plinth and with a suspension loop behind the head. [3]
ProvenanceCollection of a Lady, circa 1940.
From a specialist collection.
Cf. Lacovara, P., and Markowitz, Y.J., Jewels of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Treasures from the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester MA, 2020, pp. 108-109, for examples of similar cat amulets.
FootnotesIn ancient Egypt, the cat was revered as the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet, whose main cult centre was Bubastis in the Nile Delta. Although cats were once part of folk customs, their formal worship expanded across Egypt during the Late Period. Bastet was closely connected to lion-headed goddesses such as Sekhmet, Tefnut, and Pakhet, and the cat itself became linked to solar imagery: the Book of the Dead depicts the sun god as a Great Cat defeating Apophis beneath the sacred Ished Tree. The cat could also represent the Eye of the Sun or, more commonly in Bastet’s case, the Eye of the Moon. Mummified cats were often offered as votive offerings, and some were decorated with finely crafted bronze heads to emphasise their divine likeness.
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LOT 0520
Egyptian Faience Bastet Cat Amulet Collection
Estimate £1,200 - 1,700€1,390 - 1,970 (for guidance only)$1,620 - 2,300 (for guidance only)
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Egyptian Faience Amulet of Tawaret
664-332 B.C.Estimate: £350 - 450 (‡+bp*)
Opening Bid: £175
Modelled in the round, with a dorsal pillar and a loop at the shoulder, the goddess is in hippopotamus form, with a human torso and arms and a crocodile tail. 7.9 grams, 50 mm
Private collection, Carouge, Switzerland, assembled in the 1980s-1990s. Thence by descent to the collection of Mr S.P., since 2020. -
Large Romano-Egyptian Terracotta Figure of Baubo
Ptolemaic Period, 332-30 B.C.Estimate: £800 - 1,000 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £400
Modelled as a seated plump female figure; the right hand touching the pubic area beneath the rounded abdomen, wearing a tall headdress of thick braids, falling on her shoulders, smooth back with a vent hole; chipped at left foot and arm. 373 grams, 15.5 cm
with Superior Galleries, Los Angeles, USA. Ex Dr W. Benson Harer, Los Angeles, USA, March 1985.
Baubo was a minor divinity of the Greek mythology, linked to the cult of Demeter and Persephone. The statuette belongs to the second type of Baubo figurines, widespread in the last Ptolemaic and Roman period in Egypt. The Egyptian Baubo figures are split into two groups, and this one belongs to the first group depicting a woman seating frontally whilst holding a musical instrument. In some of these figurines her right hand is touching her genitalia. Many of them were used as amulets or as ex-voto. -
Egyptian Lapis Lazuli Scarab
Late Period, 664-332 B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £715
Carved in the round with longitudinal piercing, ellipsoid base. 12.8 grams, 30 mm
Ex early 20th century collection.
