MIDDLE KINGDOM, LATE 12TH-13TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 1800-1640 B.C.

Details

AN EGYPTIAN BLACK DIORITE MALE BUST
MIDDLE KINGDOM, LATE 12TH-13TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 1800-1640 B.C.
6 5/8 in. (16.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Fine Antiquities, Christie's, London, 26 November 1980, lot 225.
Property of a European noble family.
Fine Antiquities, Christie's, London, 11 July 1984, lot 159.
English private collection, acquired from the above.
Antiquities including property from the Leo Mildenberg collection, Christie's, London, 20 April 2005, lot 381.

Special notice

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The male is rendered with a short baggy wig and a sidelock, indicating that he represented a priest or member of the royal family. The fragment was likely broken away from a dyad. For private portraiture in the Middle Kingdom cf. A. Oppenheim et. al. (eds.), Ancient Egypt Transformed, New York, 2015, nos. 89 and 126: "From the late Middle Kingdom to the Second Intermediate Period, Egyptians manufactured a large number of small statuettes of private people, usually out of dark stones such as diorite, gabro, basalt, serpentine, and graywacke...they were sometimes placed inside memorial chapels and therefore must have served functions comparable to those of stelae and false doors: they commemorated private individuals and received offerings for them".

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