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An Egyptian limestone head of a pharaoh image 1
An Egyptian limestone head of a pharaoh image 2
Various Properties
Lot 29

An Egyptian limestone head of a pharaoh

Antiquities
1 December 2020, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £15,250 inc. premium

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An Egyptian limestone head of a pharaoh
Ptolemaic Period, circa 2nd-1st Century B.C.
Possibly from a sphinx, depicted wearing the nemes headdress with a (mostly lost) central uraeus, the headcloth tucked behind the pronounced ears, the youthful face with finely rimmed almond-shaped eyes and full lips, 17cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
M. Bernard Daydé (1921-1986) collection, France; gifted by King Farouk I in 1950.
Ancienne collection Bernard Daydé (1921-1986); Beaussant-Lefebvre, Paris, 17 November 2015, lot 145.

The visual depiction of the king in combination with the powerful body of a lion became prevalent during the Late Period, but the idea of the royal sphinx was particularly popular from the Ptolemaic Period onwards. The soft and rounded contours of the nemes headdress seen in the above royal head are typical of Ptolemaic carving. The queue or pigtail at the base of the headdress at the back is now missing but its position when vertical can suggest the beginning of lion shoulders. There is a similar portrayal in limestone of a Ptolemaic king, possibly from a sphinx, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 41.6.1. For a red granite head from a Ptolemaic sphinx resembling the features of the above lot see Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, circa 700 B.C.-100 A.D., The Brooklyn Museum, 1960, p. 147, pl. 106, no. 114.

Bernard Daydé was an actor, production designer and costume designer, and was artistic director of the Théâtre Lyrique from 1971 to 1977, on the initiative of Rolf Liebermann.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

An Anatolian marble idol
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