CIRCA LATE 4TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY A.D.

Details

TWO COPTIC TEXTILE FRAGMENTS
CIRCA LATE 4TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY A.D.
Perhaps from curtains, one with a standing draped figure, crowned, a flowering stalk in his right hand, his left elbow resting on a cornucopia; and one with a similar figure holding a cornucopia in his right hand, a sheaf of wheat in his left, a large medallion pendant hanging from a necklace; both of linen and natural, dark brown, red and green wool
Larger: 15 3/8 in. (39.1 cm.) long (2)

Provenance

with Christian Grand, Zurich, 1972.

Lot Essay

For the type see no. 39, p. 129 in Friedman, Beyond the Pharaohs, Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries A.D., of which the author notes that such curtains were common in this period and were part of a standard iconographic repertory of Dionysiac, seasonal and pastoral themes that "made them broad allegories of life's blessing and renewal..."

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