A Coptic Wood comb

A Coptic Wood comb
Circa 7th-8th Century A.D.
With a central panel of openwork decoration carved with a figure atop a quadruped, perhaps a horse or a goat, with dot and circle decoration, flanked by fine teeth above and thicker teeth below, 22.5cm x 8cm

Provenance:
Private collection, UK, formed from the 1970s onwards.

Examples of combs with figural decoration are relatively rare. For a comb decorated with a cockerel see Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie, Objects of Daily Use, Guildford, 1974, pl. XXI, no. 54. There is another openwork comb similar to the above lot, decorated with animals, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 12.182.88.