Details

LOT 0008

Egyptian Large Gilt Mummy Mask

PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 332-30 BC

24 3/4" (2.13 kg total, 63cm including stand).

A cartonnage mask with gesso and gilded surface; wearing a tripartite wig with hawk to top of head with sun-disc; painted with panels to either side with frieze of uraeus snakes with sun-disc to top of head; below, the Four Sons of Horus with mummifom bodies before Osiris seated on a throne with mummiform body holding crook and flail, wearing Atef crown; panel below with four seated deities wearing tripartite wigs, holding was sceptres; wadjet eyes to the side, gilded face with painted eyes and eyebrows; panel to chest with Broad Collar, horizontal panel below with diamond pattern; to the back standing mummiform figure wearing tripartite wig and false beard; areas to surface with mummification resin; mounted on a custom-made stand.

Provenance

From a private Dutch collection formed between 1954-1974; the property of C.S.J. Van der Molen-Beerenbrock (1934-2016); thence by descent to a Monaco gentleman.

Literature

See Bierbrier, M. Portraits and Masks: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, London, 1997, for discussion.

CONDITION