LOT 0249

Large Western Asiatic Bronze Figure of a Bull

CIRCA 10TH CENTURY B.C.

7 1/2 in. (1.32 kg, 19.2 cm).

A heavy example modelled in the round with slender elongated trunk, thick neck and prominent horns, vestigial ears below; Anatolian workmanship.

with Christie's, New York, 8 June 2001, no.363.
Private collection, Europe.

Accompanied by copies of the relevant Christie's catalogue pages.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12414-226675.
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. similar in the Walters Art Museum, New York, under accession no.54.1671; and Peltenburg, E., The Burrell Collection: Western Asiatic Antiquities, Edinburgh, 1991, item 99, for type; cf. also Kozloff, A.P., Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Mainz am Rhein, 1981, fig. 60, for a similar example; Kozloff, A.P., Mitten, D.G., More Animals in Ancient Art, from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Mainz Am Rhein, 1986, nos.16,18; Zahlhaas, G., Animals in Ancient Art, Out of Noah's Ark, from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Mainz, 1997, fig.140, for similar.

Bulls with raised horns have been found in central Anatolian royal burials. Among the sacred animals found in the royal graves of Alacahöyük, the bull and the deer are always present. This simplified figure of a young and spritely standing bull recalls the Baltimore bull and other two examples in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of bulls were mounted on standards, used in battlefields or in religious processions, or like in the royal graves of Alacahöyük, they were used to decorate cult furniture or shrines.