LOT 0006

Egyptian Limestone False Door Relief Panel

MIDDLE KINGDOM, CIRCA 1900-1750 B.C.

11 1/4 in. (4.12 kg, 28.7 cm).

Rectangular panel from a false door stela carved in sunk relief with raised vertical borders framing a scene with a male figure wearing a knee-length kilt, collar and short wig, seated on a stool with lion-claw feet, holding a bolt of cloth in his left hand; before him, a pedestal table with splayed feet, the top laden with vertical loaves; traces of pigment to the collar, kilt and table; rear face dressed but plain.

Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.

Cf. Hein, I., and Satzinger, H., Stelen des Mittleren Reiches II: einschliesslich der I. und II. zwischenzeit Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien ägyptisch-orientalische sammlung, Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum, Mainz am Rhein, 1993, pp.136-139 for a complete false door stela with a similar scene of the deceased seated before an offering table.

The ancient Egyptians believed the soul of the departed could move in and out of the tomb using a ‘false door.’ This door was identified by a recessed surface with a symbolic entrance at its centre. In the Middle Kingdom, the false door design was combined with other elements or represented by a raised border and cornice above on rectangular stelae.