A BASALT BUST OF A GODDESS

EARLY PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 305-200 B.C.

細節

A BASALT BUST OF A GODDESS
early ptolemaic period, 305-200 b.c.
Possibly depicting Isis, dressed in a tight-fitting sheath revealing the forms of her body beneath, including her navel, her arms bent at the elbows, wearing a tripartite wig with uraeus, surmounted by a circlet of uraei, a mortise for a now-missing attachment in the center, her oval face with full and detailed lips, the rimmed, horizontally set almond-shaped eyes beneath modeled brows, the back pillar uninscribed
12.5/8 in. (32 cm.) high

來源

Dr. Wolf Elkan
Kunstwerke der Antike, Mnzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel, Auktion XXII, 13 May 1961, p.114, no.230, pl.70.

拍品專文

This well-sculpted bust may represent a Ptolemaic queen in the guise of a goddess. The treatment of the brows and eyes suggests a date within the first half of the Ptolemaic Dynasty and invites comparisons with images of Arsinoe II, the deified wife and sister of Ptolemy II.
The stippled surfaces may have served as mordants for the adherence of gesso, suggesting that the entire image was originally either gilded or clothed in gold leaf.
For similar Ptolemaic portraits see pp. 166-172 in Bianchi, et al., Cleopatra's Egypt, Age of the Ptolemies.