AN EGYPTIAN BRONZE BES

LATE PTOLEMAIC PERIOD TO ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN BRONZE BES
LATE PTOLEMAIC PERIOD TO ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.
The bandy-legged god depicted nude but for a stippled leopard's pelt draped at his shoulders and tied on his paunchy belly revealing his genitalia, the forepaws and head resting on his chest, the hind paws on his thighs, its tail descending in the back, his arms bent at the elbows, both palms fisted, perhaps once holding now-missing attributes, his characteristic leonine face with a deeply creased forehead, furrowed diagonal brows, a bulbous nose, thick lips and wide ears, his tongue lolling between his curling mane, surmounted by a fanning feather crown, the tips scrolling outwards, the details incised
6 ½ in. (16.5 cm.) high

Provenance

with Elio Sello, Solduno, Switzerland, 1960s.
Art Market, Geneva.
Madame Alice Hirschfeld, Lausanne, acquired from the above, 1968.

Lot Essay

According to R.H. Wilkinson, "Despite his appearance, which changed in many details over time, Bes was deemed beneficent to humans and he was accepted by all classes of Egyptians as a powerful apotropaic deity. He was especially associated with the protection of children, pregnant women and those giving birth..." (p. 102 in The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt).
Bes' complex iconography shows the deity often as a human dwarf/lion hybrid. After the New Kingdom representations of Bes wearing a leopard skin, as in the present example, begin to appear (see p. 103 op. cit.) Bes continued to be a popular god into the Greco-Roman period, and was adopted by the military as a protective figure.

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