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Lot 143*

An Egyptian bronze Osiris-Canopus

Antiquities
6 July 2021, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £3,570 inc. premium

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An Egyptian bronze Osiris-Canopus
Roman Period, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D.
The canopic jar body cast in relief with a winged scarab supporting a sun-disc with uraei, a naos surmounted by falcons above, flanked on each side by three deities, including Harpocrates, surmounted biy the head of Osiris wearing a striped tripartite wig and double feather crown with ram's horns, sun disc and uraeus, and a small false beard, dotted hatching at the shoulder, a wreath around the foot, a falcon on the reverse wearing a sun disc, 12cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Private collection, Geneva.
Private collection, Europe, acquired from the above in 2006.

Cf. a similar example at the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, acc. no. 8023 - the hatching at the shoulder is described as a mesh with pearls, and this example is on an offering-table shaped pedestal.

The god Osiris-Canopus was named for the city of Canopus on the western coast of the Nile delta, where the cult of the deity flourished. Iconographically, the jar is thought to represent the abundance brought by the waters of the Nile. Imagery of the god appeared on Alexandrian coins from the 1st Century A.D. onwards, reaching prominence in the 2nd Century in Egypt and beyond. After a visit to Canopus the Emperor Hadrian had an image made in basalt of Osiris-Canopus for his villa at Tivoli (now in the Vatican Museums, Gregoriano Egizio, inv. no. 22852).

Additional information

Bid now on these items

An Anatolian marble idol
A Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone with dedication inscription of King Lipit-Ishtar of Isin
A small Mesopotamian clay cuneiform foundation cone inscribed for King Sin-Kashid of Uruk
A Neo-Assyrian or Neo-Hittite bronze helmet with pelta-shaped cheek-pieces
A Babylonian agate "eye-stone" bead, inscribed for Nebuchadnezzar II
A large Etruscan Impasto Ware pottery olla
A Roman marble torso of a youth wearing a tunic
A Roman marble head of a satyr
An Attic pottery tankard with geometric decoration
A Greek bronze horse
A Greek pottery alabastron in the form of a greaved leg
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