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LOT 0020
Egyptian Steatite Scarab
SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, 17TH-16TH CENTURY B.C.
3/4 in. (4.06 grams, 21 mm).
Finely carved scarab with naturalistically detailed legs and head, the underside decorated with a standing figure atop a neb hieroglyph facing a stylised crocodile.
Provenancewith Archeological Centre, 2015.
Private collection, Europe.
Cf. Ben-Tor, D., Scarabs, Chronology, and Interconnections: Egypt and Palestine in the Second Intermediate Period, Zurich, 2007, p.176, for discussion of this scarab type, and pl.99, no.9, for an example.
FootnotesScarabs with this design have been discovered in the northern Delta of Egypt and Palestine. The influence of the crocodile god Sobek on the production of late middle Bronze Age settlers at Avaris in the Egyptian Delta likely contributed to the popularity of Egyptian-themed scarabs with crocodiles and standing figures found in Palestinian sites.
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AUCTIONS:
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Egyptian Steatite Scarab
1st millennium B.C.Estimate: £400 - 600 (‡+bp*)
Opening Bid: £200
With detailed carapace and mouth, hieroglyphs to the underside depicting a pharaoh-headed recumbent lion, with hes-vase in front and the crowns of Lower and Upper Egypt behind. 0.80 grams, 12 mm
Ex R. Liechti (1934-2010) Geneva, Switzerland, formed between 1950-1990s. -
Egyptian Bronze Statue of a Kneeling Priest
Late Period, 664-332 B.C.Estimate: £250 - 350 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £139
Kneeling on a rectangular platform with a wide apron covering his thighs, clean-shaven head and hands raised in adoration; tang on the underside for attachment; mounted on a display stand. 41 grams total, statue: 30 mm high
From an early 20th century Home Counties, UK, collection.
Priest figurines like this were commonly placed before a larger figurine of a deity, both attached to a base, e.g., Schulz, R., Seidel, M., Egyptian Art. The Walters Art Museum, London, 2009, for a kneeling priest before a standing figure of Anubis. -
Large Egyptian Blue Glazed Hieroglyphic Shabti
26th Dynasty, 664-525 B.C.Estimate: £1,200 - 1,700 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £667
Of mummiform type, wearing a tripartite wig and long plaited divine beard, with arms crossed and the left hand holding a pick, the right hand holding a hoe and the cord of a seed bag hanging over his left shoulder, with carefully rendered cosmetic lines around the eyes, narrow eyebrows, and slightly smiling lips giving it a serene expression characteristic of the finest ushabtis of the period; standing on an integral plinth from which a plain back pillar terminating at the base of the wig extends; six horizontal rows of hieroglyphic inscription, the Sixth Chapter of the Book of the Dead; water worn and repaired. 248 grams, 18.5 cm
Acquired on the German art market, 1989-1995. with The Museum Gallery, 19 Bury Place, London, WC1, UK, 1998-2003. Property of a London based academic, 2003-present.
