Details

LOT 1243

South Arabian Alabaster Head of a Woman

3RD-1ST CENTURY B.C.

9 5/8 in. (3.3 kg total, 24.3 cm high including stand).

Modelled with an angular nose with straight ridge, small mouth with raised lips, rounded cheeks and chin, shallow eyes with grooved outlines, shallow ears, short neck, the back and the top of the head left roughly tooled; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Provenance

UK collection, 1990s.
Acquired on the UK art market, before 2000.
Private collection, Mr M.V., a London-based businessman.

Literature

Cf. Cleveland R.L., An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, objects from the second campaign (1951) in the Timna Cemetery, Baltimore, pls.4-5 for similar examples.

Footnotes

This finely carved calcite-alabaster head was probably unfinished, as can be seen from the absence of the holes for the inlay of the eyes and the unfinished ears. In the Arabian funerary sculptures of the period, the tops of the heads are usually cut off flat just above the hair line and left roughly tooled. The cut was due to the necessity of fitting them into niches of 'house shrines'. Large stelae with niches containing such heads were found in the Timna Cemetery.