Sumerian Alabaster Eye Idol

4TH-3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.

2 7/8 in. (298 grams, 72 mm).

Formed as a squat, oblate body and dressed upper with two piercings forming eyes; flat underside.

Provenance

Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.

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 search certificate number no.12186-222131.

Literature

See parallel idols in Louvre Museum, accession number SB 9141, for similar; Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no.1988.323.8; British Museum, excavated by Professor Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, inv. Nos.126473, 126477 and 126479; see also Collon, D., Ancient Near Eastern Art, London, 1995, p.47, for type; for the discussion on Tell Brak, their iconography and the religious meaning of eye idol see Green, J.B. & T.R., Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, An illustrated dictionary, London, 1992, pp.78-79.

CONDITION

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LOT 0240