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Lot Essay
Featuring two standing figures of the child god Harpocrates side by side, this example in bronze exhibits the rounded bellies and soft limbs typical of Ptolemaic sculpture. Aside from a small faience amulet in Brooklyn (Brooklyn Museum 37.1058E), the double form of Harpocrates wearing the double and red crowns is otherwise known only from a very limited series of bronze figural groups featuring the goddess Neith of Sais, often with small figures of their donors. An ensemble in the Walters Art Museum [54.541, G. Steindorff, Catalogue of Egyptian Sculpture in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore:1947), 551] depicts a kneeling donor making offerings to the seated Neith who is flanked on either side by the two versions of Harpocrates, as here wearing the double crown of Egypt on the proper right side, and the red crown of Lower Egypt on the right. Both point their finger to their mouth in the typical Egyptian gesture of childhood. A dedicatory inscription on the base of the Walters group asks for Neith to give life to the donor, Hor-em-kheb (“Horus in Chemmis”). A nearly identical group with Neith and the two standing Harpocrates in Berlin (ÄM 11012) is closely related and is inscribed for a man called Pa-wah-usir (“The one who makes Osiris endure”) who seems on the basis of similar filiation to be the brother of Hor-em-kheb [G. Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren,(Berlin: 1956), 506 and pl. 68b ]. Traces of a hieroglyphic donation formula are partially legible on the sides of the base of the present example. The formula is a dedication to Horus, asking for life to be given to an individual: "Men. . . born of the Lady of the House Aper. . . ."; "True (?) Horus, given life, praise/jubilation"; ". . . .Horus (?), who makes (?) fear/dread (or protection)".
A-C. Thiem who has studied the two bronze groups in Berlin and Baltimore suggests that the double Harpocrates perhaps represent the ”northern Horus” and “southern Horus,” and the selection of this pair of child gods may also connect to the identity of the two brother-donors as well, whose names reflect mythological associations with the child Horus. Textual references to Neith as “mistress of the land” (i.e., of Egypt) may well provide some of the conceptual framework with which to understand these rare representations. A group in Cairo [CG 39.378, G. Daressy, Statues de Divinités (Cairo: 1906), 346 and pl. 63 ] preserves a standing figure of Neith fronted by the two standing figures of Harpocrates; this example was probably once also added to a shared base featuring an image of a kneeling donor. Neith is depicted on some magical Haropcrates stelae (cippi) mastering two crocodiles, reflecting a tradition that Neith was a mother of twin gods, and amulets in faience are known which show her suckling twin crocodiles at her breasts (cf. Munich ÄS 2925 and Metropolitan Museum 21.6.46). Although in these instances the association is with the crocodile deities Sobek and Shemanefer as her children, the bronze groups showing the two Harpocrates could also allude to this mythological background.
A-C. Thiem who has studied the two bronze groups in Berlin and Baltimore suggests that the double Harpocrates perhaps represent the ”northern Horus” and “southern Horus,” and the selection of this pair of child gods may also connect to the identity of the two brother-donors as well, whose names reflect mythological associations with the child Horus. Textual references to Neith as “mistress of the land” (i.e., of Egypt) may well provide some of the conceptual framework with which to understand these rare representations. A group in Cairo [CG 39.378, G. Daressy, Statues de Divinités (Cairo: 1906), 346 and pl. 63 ] preserves a standing figure of Neith fronted by the two standing figures of Harpocrates; this example was probably once also added to a shared base featuring an image of a kneeling donor. Neith is depicted on some magical Haropcrates stelae (cippi) mastering two crocodiles, reflecting a tradition that Neith was a mother of twin gods, and amulets in faience are known which show her suckling twin crocodiles at her breasts (cf. Munich ÄS 2925 and Metropolitan Museum 21.6.46). Although in these instances the association is with the crocodile deities Sobek and Shemanefer as her children, the bronze groups showing the two Harpocrates could also allude to this mythological background.