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The Empain Collection of Egyptian Antiquities
Edouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain, was born on 20 September 1852 in Belgium. From a humble background he became a wealthy engineer, entrepreneur, financier and industrialist, as well as an amateur Egyptologist. After his success in creating the Paris metro, in 1904 he went to Egypt to rescue one of his railway projects linking Matariya to Port Said. Although he lost the contract to the British, he had fallen in love with both the Egyptian desert and the Cairene socialite Yvette Boghdadli. In 1906 he set up the Cairo Electric Railways and the Heliopolis Oasis Company which bought land in the desert north west of Cairo. This became the new luxurious and fashionable quarter of Heliopolis ('City of the Sun') with its modern facilities and leisure areas, still desirable today by wealthy Egyptians. Sultan Hussein Kamal, who ruled Egypt between 1914-1917, lived there; his Arabesque Palace today houses the Military headquarters. Baron Empain commissioned the French architect Alexander Marcel to design a unique building for himself known as The Palais Hindoo or Baron Empain Palace in the Avenue des Palais, inspired by the Hindu temples in Orissa in India and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Ascending green terraces with erotic marble sculptures and exotic vegetation greeted the guests, which included King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians on their pre-First World War tour. The family mausoleum was contained on the underground floors. Long since abandoned, its fresco murals, gilded doors, balustrades, gold-plated door-knobs, and Belgian mirrors sold off, the empty shell still greets visitors on their way from Cairo airport to the city centre.
In 1905 Edouard Empain had collaborated with the Belgian government and Jean Capart, the chief curator of the Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire in Brussels, acquiring objects from the Old Kingdom mastaba of Neferirtenef, as well as other sources, for which service he was rewarded with the title of baron. Subsequently he began forming his own collection of mainly Old Kingdom stone vessels, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom artefacts, not grand stone sculpture and reliefs, but small beautifully crafted objects, some for everyday use, some funerary, which reflected the lives of affluent Egyptians, such as the anhydrite cosmetic jar (lot 28), the garnet and gold amuletic necklace (lot 39), the nine miniature inscribed gold frogs (lot 40), the granite and cornelian fly ornaments, a type once awarded for military bravery (lots 64 & 66), the finger rings (lots 42, 43 & 45), the ram's head of Amun made in 'Egyptian blue' (lot 41), the earliest examples of 14th century B.C. glass in the form of gilded opaque turquoise pomegranate pendants (lot 44), the elongated blue glass drop beads (lot 51), and the polychrome 'faience' fruit and floral pendants from a broad collar worn by a fashionable 'Amarna' lady (lot 46).
The Empain Collection also includes the exceptionally finely carved wood statue of the nobleman Khety (lot 21), his contemporary (lot 22) and the other earlier wood figures of dignitaries (lots 13 & 14) that display a stylistic continuity, seen at Saqqara at the end of the Old Kingdom (cf. The statue of Methethy in Brooklyn Museum), with the distinctive feature, possibly religious, of the right hand tucked into the fold of the half-goffered kilt. Also the lively figures of bakers or brewers (lots 15, 20 & 25) show that these sculptors in wood were akin to priests or magicians since they brought to life the deceased person. Figures (lots 21 & 22) might even be portraits of the wealthy patron, so powerful and individual are they. These statues detail the life of a grand land-owner, controlling livestock, grain and timber supplies as well as human resources, a vignette of everyday life on one of the great estates along the Nile valley (granary model lot 35).
These are the treasures which have survived, and which link and mirror the lives of two men, Baron Empain and the nobleman Khety, one of the early 20th Century A.D. and one of the 20th Century B.C.
As one of the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts said about survival and protection:
"I have filled your stores, and brought in your wine-racks; your bread cannot grow mouldy, your beer will never sour" (CT 67, circa 1950 B.C.)
Christine Insley Green
The Song of the Harper
The song which is in the tomb-chapel of King Intef, justified, in front of the singer with the harp.
He is happy, this good prince: Death is a kindly fate. A generation passes, another stays, since the time of the ancestors. The gods who were before rest in their pyramid tombs, blessed nobles too are buried in their tombs. (Yet) those who built tombs, their cult places are gone, what has become of them?
I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef, which are quoted in the proverbs so much: what of their cult places? gone, as though they had never been! None comes from there, to tell of their state, to tell of their needs, to calm our hearts, until we go where they have gone!
Hence rejoice in your heart! Forgetfulness profits you: follow your heart as long as you live! Put myrrh on your head, dress in fine linen, anoint yourself with oils fit for a god: heap up your joys, let not your heart sink! Follow your heart and what is good: acquire your possessions on earth as your heart commands! When there comes to you that day of mourning, the Weary-hearted (i.e. Osiris) hears not their sobbing: wailing saves no man from the tomb.
Chorus: Make holiday. But tire yourself not with it!
Lo, none is allowed to take his goods with him,
Lo, none who departs comes back again
British Museum EA 10060 (=P.Harris 500)
AN EGYPTIAN BLACK-TOPPED REDWARE JAR
PREDYNASTIC, NAQADA I-II, CIRCA 3500 B.C.
Details
AN EGYPTIAN BLACK-TOPPED REDWARE JAR
PREDYNASTIC, NAQADA I-II, CIRCA 3500 B.C.
With flaring sides and flat base
5½ in. (14.0 cm.) high
PREDYNASTIC, NAQADA I-II, CIRCA 3500 B.C.
With flaring sides and flat base
5½ in. (14.0 cm.) high
Provenance
Baron Empain collection (1852-1929), France.
Accompanied by a French passport.
Accompanied by a French passport.
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