Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
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Lot 20
An Egyptian silver and green glazed composition scarab swivel ring
28 November 2017, 10:30 GMT
London, New Bond Street£8,000 - £12,000
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An Egyptian silver and green glazed composition scarab swivel ring
New Kingdom, 19th-20th Dynasty, circa 1279-1069 B.C.
The scarab naturalistically carved and set in a silver mount, pierced by a silver wire wound around the top of each end of the shank, the underside of the beetle with a ritual scene, showing a kneeling king facing left, wearing the blue crown and offering an unguent vessel (?) in his outstretched hands to a squatting baboon, either the god Thoth or Khonsu, who wears a full moon within a crescent, a hieroglyphic inscription above the scene, one probably of Maat, a large mr-sign beneath the scene, functioning as a base for the figures, scarab 2cm long; ring size R
New Kingdom, 19th-20th Dynasty, circa 1279-1069 B.C.
The scarab naturalistically carved and set in a silver mount, pierced by a silver wire wound around the top of each end of the shank, the underside of the beetle with a ritual scene, showing a kneeling king facing left, wearing the blue crown and offering an unguent vessel (?) in his outstretched hands to a squatting baboon, either the god Thoth or Khonsu, who wears a full moon within a crescent, a hieroglyphic inscription above the scene, one probably of Maat, a large mr-sign beneath the scene, functioning as a base for the figures, scarab 2cm long; ring size R
Footnotes
Provenance:
with J.J. Klejman, Madison Ave., New York.
Private collection, UK, acquired from the above ca. 1960s-1970s.
with Bluett & Sons Ltd., London, 1979.
with Sheppard and Cooper, London.
Private collection, Belgium.
This scarab finds a parallel in a scarab of Ramessess II in the Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 42.31, showing a ritual scene of the pharaoh before the baboon god Thoth. The pharaoh is identified in the Walters example by the royal throne name above the scene, and he presents the god with a figure of the goddess Maat with his right hand. The hieroglyphs above the scene in the present lot are mostly unreadable, but seem to include a Maat sign, which forms part of the throne name of Ramessess II - User-Maat-Ra.
Silver was both rarer and more costly then gold in ancient Egypt, owing to a lack of any local source of the precious metal. As a result, silver jewellery was restricted to the upper echelons of society, and survives only rarely. The combination of a silver bezel with a scene of royal piety perhaps suggests that this ring once belonged to a member of the royal court.