LOT 0026

Egyptian Red Glass Face Inlay

PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, CIRCA 332-32 B.C.

1 1/4 in. (16.7 grams, 31 mm wide).

A red glass insert of a profile face with remains of a pharaonic crown to the forehead.

Ex Joseph Altounian (1889-1954), Paris and Macon, thence by decent.
with Christie's, London, 3 July 2018, lot 29.
English private collection.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11603-199738.

Cf. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession number 66.99.186, for a profile glass inlay of this date; cf. Riefstahl, E., Ancient Egyptian Glass and Glazes In The Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1968, p.77 no. 76, pl. XI for a similar face belonging to a royal figure inlay with separately fashioned crown, collar, and torso.

Joseph Altounian opened his shop in 1906 in Paris and then relocated to Mâcon in 1924 when he was joined by his wife Henriette Lorbet. They specialised in Egyptian and Greek art, medieval sculpture and decorative arts, selling to major museums both in Europe and in the United States. At his death in 1954 the business was taken over by his daughter, Jacqueline Altounian-Lorbet, and her husband Bernard Rousset, who then specialised in antique furniture.