LOT 0014

Egyptian Wooden Cow Giving Birth Diorama with Two Figures

MIDDLE KINGDOM, 11TH-12TH DYNASTY, 2023-1862 B.C.

3 3/4 - 6 1/4 in. (113 grams total, 9.5-16 cm).

Comprising three figures to represent a calving scene: a standing cow or other quadruped giving birth to its young, its head, neck and forelegs emerging from the mother's rear, both with a black and white speckled coat; a standing male figure with articulated arms and pierced hands, wearing a kilt and cropped wig and with stylised facial detailing; a kneeling figure also with articulated arms, open-palm hands, wearing a kilt and cropped wig, stylised facial features; extensive remains of polychrome pigment. [3]

From an early 20th century Home Counties collection.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11597-199209.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D’Amato.

Cf. Barker, G., Preparing for Eternity: Funerary models and wall scenes from the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms, Oxford, 2022, p.113 figure 4.2, for a near-identical calving cow figure, possibly from Meir (now in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, inv. no. 910.18.16.1-3); cf. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession numbers 2021.41.170 and 11.150.5, for similar human and animal figures of this date.

Such models would have been deposited in tombs; the purpose of such a scene was probably to evoke the season of spring, when calves were born, and the floodplain where farmers lived and raised their livestock.