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PAINTED WOODEN MUMIEFORM COFFIN WITH A FALCON’S HEAD
See original version (French)
48
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PAINTED WOODEN MUMIEFORM COFFIN WITH A FALCON’S HEAD
See original version (French)
Estimate €3,000 - €5,000
Voluntary lot
Description
PAINTED WOODEN MUMIEFORM COFFIN WITH A FALCON’S HEAD
Egyptian art, Ptolemaic period, 332–30 BC
A mummy-shaped coffin with a falcon’s head; the face has a golden complexion, with anatomical details painted in black; it wears a three-part headdress, the body entirely covered with a polychrome decoration depicting, in the first register, a broad necklace with several rows of flowers and pearls, surmounting an ankh cross flanked by two cobras bearing, respectively, the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. Finally, on the lowest register, at the feet, are seven columns of hieroglyphic inscription, an invocation to Osiris. On the reverse is depicted a dorsal pillar painted with a column of hieroglyphs reproducing the hymn associated with the god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.
There is an old label, now incomplete: ‘No. 98-I8 Bo [x] having cate [x] Pto [x] period’.
Height: 48.5 cm
Provenance: Albert Eid & Cie, Antiquities, Cairo
Arnold Victor Kunst Collection (1903–1981), acquired in 1950
Private English collection, acquired in 1981
Bonhams, London, 25 April 2012: lot 122 (ill.)
Christian Levett Collection, Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins
Exhibitions: Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins (MACM), Mougins, France, June 2011–August 2023 (Inv. No. MMoCA813)
Caesar & Cleopatra, Historisches Museum Der Pfalz, Speyer, Germany, 13 April–26 October 2025
Bibliography: Bonhams, Antiquities, London, 25 April 2012, lot 122
An Egyptian painted wood falcon-headed coffin,
Ptolemaic Period, 332–30 BC
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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