LATE PERIOD, 25TH-26TH DYNASTY, 712-525 B.C.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN BASALT BUST OF A GODDESS
LATE PERIOD, 25TH-26TH DYNASTY, 712-525 B.C.
Possibly depicting Isis, dressed in a tightly-fitted sheath revealing the form of her body beneath, including her sunken navel, her arms bent, wearing a tripartite headcloth fronted by a uraeus, surmounted by a modius of uraei, her oval face with full smiling lips dimpled in the corners, her large almond-shaped eyes with heavily-emphasized kohl lines beneath conforming modelled brows, the back pillar uninscribed
12 5/8 in. (32.1 cm.) high

Provenance

Auktion XXII, Münzen und Medaillen, Basel, 13 May 1961, lot 230.
Dr. Wolf Elkan, New York.
Nadia Velasquez, New York.
Ms. Nadia Velasquez; Antiquities, Christie's, New York, 18 December 1997, lot 74.
Property of a Lady; Antiquities, Christie's, New York, 5 June 1998, lot 73.

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Lot Essay

This sculpture may represent a Kushite queen in the guise of a goddess, likely Isis. The treatment of the brows and eyes suggest a date within the 7th century B.C. The single uraeus is more characteristic of the 26th Dynasty, in order to conform with most traditional costume, rather than the double uraei more often utilized in the 25th Dynasty. See, for example, a statue of Isis and Osiris with similar proportions and composition, no. 57 in A.K. Capel, G.E. Markoe, eds., Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven, Women in Ancient Egypt.
The stippled surface may have served as mordants for the adherence of gesso, suggesting that the entire image was originally clothed in gold leaf. This surface is common on royal Kushite statuary, as seen on a statue of Queen Amanimalel (643-623 B.C.), which also shows similar proportions to this goddess, no. 231 in D. Wildung, ed., Sudan, Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile.

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