Various Properties
Lot 60
A Romano-Egyptian basalt head of a man
4 December 2025, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£10,000 - £15,000
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Joanna van der Lande
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Siobhan Quin
Senior Specialist
Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
A Romano-Egyptian basalt head of a man
Circa 1st-3rd Century A.D.
21cm high
21cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Guy Goudchaux Collection, formed in the 1960s.
Private English collection, acquired from the above in the late 1970s.
See Robert Steven Bianchi; The Cultural Transformation of Egypt as Suggested by a Group of Enthroned Male figures from the Faiyum in Janet H. Johnson (ed.), Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond, in conjunction with the Fourth International Congress of Demotists, Chicago, 4-8 September 1990 (SAOC 51), Chicago, 1992, pp. 15-39, pl. 3.5-3.10 for seated male statues in basalt with rows of tightly curled hair.
This head should be considered in the context of the Egyptian influence on Greek sculpture. Robert Bianchi notes in the article: "It is clear that the Greeks, but not the Egyptian, were the borrowers of culture..." (p. 15) and that "...pharaonic elements, both visual and thematic, are completely veiled in the classical mantle." (p. 23).