A LARGE ALABASTER FIGURE OF A PRIEST OF SABA, MIDDLE PERIOD OF ANCIENT SOUTH ARABIA, KINGDOMS OF
A LARGE ALABASTER FIGURE OF A PRIEST OF SABA, MIDDLE PERIOD OF ANCIENT SOUTH ARABIA, KINGDOMS OF SABA, MA'IN, QATABAN AND HADRAMAWT, 3RD-1ST CENTURY BC
Expert's note
The imposing scale, exceptional quality, and distinctive devotional gesture of the present figure identify it as the representation of a personage of high social standing, most likely a priest from the region of Saba. At 58 cm in height, it would have commanded a powerful presence within the temple sanctuary for which it was conceived.
The position of the arms and clenched hands indicates that the figure originally held an object and was represented in the act of making a votive offering. This gesture belongs to a long-established tradition of devotional imagery in ancient Arabia and the Levant during the first millennium BC and is conventionally described as the “Orans” posture, a term derived from Latin orare, “to pray.” Characteristically, the worshipper stands frontally, with the elbows held close to the body and the forearms and hands extended toward the deity.
Such votive figures served as enduring substitutes for their donors within the sacred space. Once installed in a sanctuary, the image perpetuated the worshipper's presence before the deity and maintained his act of devotion beyond the moment of the original offering. In the present figure, this religious function is given unusual visual force by the monumental scale, powerful frontal stance, and intensely animated inlaid eyes.
Yemen. Finely carved and meticulously polished, the male figure stands frontally atop a rectangular integral base, his feet placed firmly side by side with individually articulated toes. The compact, powerful physique is sensitively modeled with broad shoulders, strong upper arms, pronounced pectoral muscles, a narrow waist, and subtly articulated knees. Both arms are bent forward at the elbows, the clenched hands originally intended to hold an object. He wears a finely detailed kilt wrapped around the hips and fastened at the rear.
The face is delicately fashioned yet strongly stylized, with subtly modeled cheekbones, geometricized ears, and a long, straight-edged nose merging seamlessly into the symmetrical arch of the eyebrows. The large eyes retain their elaborate inlays of bitumen, bronze, and marble, lending the otherwise highly abstracted features a remarkably vivid presence. The sculptor cleverly exploited the natural variations of the calcite alabaster, incorporating the coarser texture of the stone into the treatment of the hair, while a fine horizontal reddish vein runs naturally across the shoulder blades.
Provenance
- With Asfar & Sarkis, Beirut, 1950s-1960s.
- Thereafter in a private collection, Europe and Asia, acquired in the 1980s.
- Thereafter on the London art market, 2009.
- Thereafter with Ariadne Galleries, New York and London.
- Thereafter in a private collection, United States, acquired from the above.
- A copy of a certificate issued by Ariadne Galleries, confirming the dating and the above provenance, accompanies this lot.
- A copy of the official 1934 antiquities dealer's license from Asfar & Sarkis accompanies this lot.
Asfar & Sarkis was a prominent antiquities firm established by Georges Asfar (1904-1995) and Jean Sarkis (d. 1955), operating in Damascus and later Beirut and specializing in Near Eastern antiquities, textiles, furnishings, and historic Syrian interiors. The firm catered to an international clientele and played an important role in the movement of Syrian and Islamic works of art into major Western collections during the first half of the 20th century. Among their most notable clients was the American tobacco heiress, philanthropist, and important collector Doris Duke, who first encountered Asfar & Sarkis during her visit to Damascus in 1938. Duke continued to acquire works and architectural elements from the firm over subsequent decades, including the celebrated Damascene interior installed at Shangri La, her renowned collection of Islamic art in Honolulu, Hawai'i.
Ariadne Galleries, founded in 1972, has established a reputation as one of the world's leading dealers in ancient art. For many years based in a prominent gallery on New York's Upper East Side, Ariadne expanded to London in 2014, opening a second gallery in the historic art district of Mayfair. Over more than five decades, the gallery has worked with important private collectors and foundations as well as many of the world's leading museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Art Loss Register: ALR Ref. S00099221. A copy of the certification document accompanies the lot.
Provenance Note: Asfar & Sarkis and the 1934 Antiquities License
The early provenance of the present sculpture is exceptionally well supported by an unusual surviving document: a copy of the official 1934 antiquities-dealer's license of Jean Sarkis and Georges Asfar. Issued by the Service des Antiquités and entitled “Licence pour le Commerce des Antiquités,” it formally authorized the partners to trade in antiquities and expressly subjected their business to the Antiquities Law of 7 November 1933. Significantly, the license also required them to submit annually to the Service des Antiquités an inventory of the antiquities in their possession.
Asfar & Sarkis were among the established antiquities and art dealers of the Levant during the 20th century, operating in Damascus and subsequently Beirut and supplying major international collectors and institutions. Their standing was already firmly established before the date of the present license: in 1929 the Louvre acquired directly from Asfar & Sarkis an important medieval marble capital from Jerusalem, while in the early 1930s they sold the celebrated eighteenth-century Damascus Room to Hagop Kevorkian; the latter subsequently entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the Hagop Kevorkian Fund. Their later clientele included Doris Duke (1912-1993), the American heiress, philanthropist, and one of the foremost private collectors of Islamic art of the 20th century, whose celebrated collection is preserved at Shangri La in Honolulu. Duke purchased works directly from Asfar & Sarkis during her 1938 visit to Damascus and continued dealing with the firm for decades; in 1953 she acquired her monumental Damascus Room from them.
Works passing through the firm are today represented, among others, in the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, and the Science Museum Group collections.
The presence of a copy of the 1934 license with the present sculpture is readily explicable in this historical context. At a time when the reproduction of documents was neither instantaneous nor inexpensive, retaining and supplying photographic or other copies of an official antiquities-trading license required deliberate effort. For an established dealer operating in a region in which antiquities also circulated through unauthorized excavation and unregulated trade, such a document provided clients with tangible evidence that Asfar & Sarkis were officially licensed by the antiquities authorities and operating within the contemporary legal framework. The license therefore constituted a meaningful commercial credential, distinguishing their business from unauthorized participants in the antiquities trade.
In the present case, Ariadne Galleries recorded the sculpture as having been with Asfar & Sarkis, Beirut, during the 1950s-1960s, followed by a private collection in Europe and Asia in the 1980s and its appearance on the London art market in 2009. The copy of the 1934 license was already recorded by Ariadne as accompanying the sculpture and has remained with the figure through its subsequent ownership.
Condition: Superb condition, commensurate with age. Expected wear, natural fissures, losses to the fingers of the right hand, and scattered minor chips throughout. Some deposits surrounding the eye inlays, with weathering to the bitumen and marble and oxidation to the bronze. The proper left hand is reattached, along with a section of the proper left side of the integral base. The alabaster has developed a magnificent warm cream-toned patina, while much of the original fine polish remains remarkably well preserved. Although both characteristics are known among South Arabian alabaster sculpture, their quality is particularly striking in the present figure. Considering its considerable size, age, and refined carving, the overall state of preservation is outstanding. Particularly remarkable is the survival of the elaborate eye inlays, which retain all three constituent materials—bitumen, bronze, and marble—and contribute substantially to the figure's powerful expression.
Weight: 21.1 kg (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 59 cm (excl. stand), 69 cm (incl. stand)
Mounted on an associated stand. (2)
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related funerary Statuette of Abi-yadaʿ, Yemen, dated to the 3rd century BC, 47 cm high, in the Toledo Museum of Art, object number 2023.340. Compare a closely related calcite figure of a woman with painted eyes, Yemen, dated 1st-2nd century, 74.5 cm high, in the British Museum, registration number 134693. Compare a closely related alabaster figure of a man with incised eyes, Yemen, dated 2nd-1st BC, 40 cm high, in the Museum Five Continents, Munich, inventory number 89-312 302.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby's London, 7 December 2021, lot 4
Price: GBP 499,000 or approx. EUR 748,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian Alabaster Figure of a Woman, Qataban, 3rd Century BC/1st Century AD
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and similar stone, facial expression, and losses. Note the much smaller size (46 cm).
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction:...
A LARGE ALABASTER FIGURE OF A PRIEST OF SABA, MIDDLE PERIOD OF ANCIENT SOUTH ARABIA, KINGDOMS OF SABA, MA'IN, QATABAN AND HADRAMAWT, 3RD-1ST CENTURY BC
Expert's note
The imposing scale, exceptional quality, and distinctive devotional gesture of the present figure identify it as the representation of a personage of high social standing, most likely a priest from the region of Saba. At 58 cm in height, it would have commanded a powerful presence within the temple sanctuary for which it was conceived.
The position of the arms and clenched hands indicates that the figure originally held an object and was represented in the act of making a votive offering. This gesture belongs to a long-established tradition of devotional imagery in ancient Arabia and the Levant during the first millennium BC and is conventionally described as the “Orans” posture, a term derived from Latin orare, “to pray.” Characteristically, the worshipper stands frontally, with the elbows held close to the body and the forearms and hands extended toward the deity.
Such votive figures served as enduring substitutes for their donors within the sacred space. Once installed in a sanctuary, the image perpetuated the worshipper's presence before the deity and maintained his act of devotion beyond the moment of the original offering. In the present figure, this religious function is given unusual visual force by the monumental scale, powerful frontal stance, and intensely animated inlaid eyes.
Yemen. Finely carved and meticulously polished, the male figure stands frontally atop a rectangular integral base, his feet placed firmly side by side with individually articulated toes. The compact, powerful physique is sensitively modeled with broad shoulders, strong upper arms, pronounced pectoral muscles, a narrow waist, and subtly articulated knees. Both arms are bent forward at the elbows, the clenched hands originally intended to hold an object. He wears a finely detailed kilt wrapped around the hips and fastened at the rear.
The face is delicately fashioned yet strongly stylized, with subtly modeled cheekbones, geometricized ears, and a long, straight-edged nose merging seamlessly into the symmetrical arch of the eyebrows. The large eyes retain their elaborate inlays of bitumen, bronze, and marble, lending the otherwise highly abstracted features a remarkably vivid presence. The sculptor cleverly exploited the natural variations of the calcite alabaster, incorporating the coarser texture of the stone into the treatment of the hair, while a fine horizontal reddish vein runs naturally across the shoulder blades.
Provenance
- With Asfar & Sarkis, Beirut, 1950s-1960s.
- Thereafter in a private collection, Europe and Asia, acquired in the 1980s.
- Thereafter on the London art market, 2009.
- Thereafter with Ariadne Galleries, New York and London.
- Thereafter in a private collection, United States, acquired from the above.
- A copy of a certificate issued by Ariadne Galleries, confirming the dating and the above provenance, accompanies this lot.
- A copy of the official 1934 antiquities dealer's license from Asfar & Sarkis accompanies this lot.
Asfar & Sarkis was a prominent antiquities firm established by Georges Asfar (1904-1995) and Jean Sarkis (d. 1955), operating in Damascus and later Beirut and specializing in Near Eastern antiquities, textiles, furnishings, and historic Syrian interiors. The firm catered to an international clientele and played an important role in the movement of Syrian and Islamic works of art into major Western collections during the first half of the 20th century. Among their most notable clients was the American tobacco heiress, philanthropist, and important collector Doris Duke, who first encountered Asfar & Sarkis during her visit to Damascus in 1938. Duke continued to acquire works and architectural elements from the firm over subsequent decades, including the celebrated Damascene interior installed at Shangri La, her renowned collection of Islamic art in Honolulu, Hawai'i.
Ariadne Galleries, founded in 1972, has established a reputation as one of the world's leading dealers in ancient art. For many years based in a prominent gallery on New York's Upper East Side, Ariadne expanded to London in 2014, opening a second gallery in the historic art district of Mayfair. Over more than five decades, the gallery has worked with important private collectors and foundations as well as many of the world's leading museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Art Loss Register: ALR Ref. S00099221. A copy of the certification document accompanies the lot.
Provenance Note: Asfar & Sarkis and the 1934 Antiquities License
The early provenance of the present sculpture is exceptionally well supported by an unusual surviving document: a copy of the official 1934 antiquities-dealer's license of Jean Sarkis and Georges Asfar. Issued by the Service des Antiquités and entitled “Licence pour le Commerce des Antiquités,” it formally authorized the partners to trade in antiquities and expressly subjected their business to the Antiquities Law of 7 November 1933. Significantly, the license also required them to submit annually to the Service des Antiquités an inventory of the antiquities in their possession.
Asfar & Sarkis were among the established antiquities and art dealers of the Levant during the 20th century, operating in Damascus and subsequently Beirut and supplying major international collectors and institutions. Their standing was already firmly established before the date of the present license: in 1929 the Louvre acquired directly from Asfar & Sarkis an important medieval marble capital from Jerusalem, while in the early 1930s they sold the celebrated eighteenth-century Damascus Room to Hagop Kevorkian; the latter subsequently entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the Hagop Kevorkian Fund. Their later clientele included Doris Duke (1912-1993), the American heiress, philanthropist, and one of the foremost private collectors of Islamic art of the 20th century, whose celebrated collection is preserved at Shangri La in Honolulu. Duke purchased works directly from Asfar & Sarkis during her 1938 visit to Damascus and continued dealing with the firm for decades; in 1953 she acquired her monumental Damascus Room from them.
Works passing through the firm are today represented, among others, in the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, and the Science Museum Group collections.
The presence of a copy of the 1934 license with the present sculpture is readily explicable in this historical context. At a time when the reproduction of documents was neither instantaneous nor inexpensive, retaining and supplying photographic or other copies of an official antiquities-trading license required deliberate effort. For an established dealer operating in a region in which antiquities also circulated through unauthorized excavation and unregulated trade, such a document provided clients with tangible evidence that Asfar & Sarkis were officially licensed by the antiquities authorities and operating within the contemporary legal framework. The license therefore constituted a meaningful commercial credential, distinguishing their business from unauthorized participants in the antiquities trade.
In the present case, Ariadne Galleries recorded the sculpture as having been with Asfar & Sarkis, Beirut, during the 1950s-1960s, followed by a private collection in Europe and Asia in the 1980s and its appearance on the London art market in 2009. The copy of the 1934 license was already recorded by Ariadne as accompanying the sculpture and has remained with the figure through its subsequent ownership.
Condition: Superb condition, commensurate with age. Expected wear, natural fissures, losses to the fingers of the right hand, and scattered minor chips throughout. Some deposits surrounding the eye inlays, with weathering to the bitumen and marble and oxidation to the bronze. The proper left hand is reattached, along with a section of the proper left side of the integral base. The alabaster has developed a magnificent warm cream-toned patina, while much of the original fine polish remains remarkably well preserved. Although both characteristics are known among South Arabian alabaster sculpture, their quality is particularly striking in the present figure. Considering its considerable size, age, and refined carving, the overall state of preservation is outstanding. Particularly remarkable is the survival of the elaborate eye inlays, which retain all three constituent materials—bitumen, bronze, and marble—and contribute substantially to the figure's powerful expression.
Weight: 21.1 kg (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 59 cm (excl. stand), 69 cm (incl. stand)
Mounted on an associated stand. (2)
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related funerary Statuette of Abi-yadaʿ, Yemen, dated to the 3rd century BC, 47 cm high, in the Toledo Museum of Art, object number 2023.340. Compare a closely related calcite figure of a woman with painted eyes, Yemen, dated 1st-2nd century, 74.5 cm high, in the British Museum, registration number 134693. Compare a closely related alabaster figure of a man with incised eyes, Yemen, dated 2nd-1st BC, 40 cm high, in the Museum Five Continents, Munich, inventory number 89-312 302.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby's London, 7 December 2021, lot 4
Price: GBP 499,000 or approx. EUR 748,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A South Arabian Alabaster Figure of a Woman, Qataban, 3rd Century BC/1st Century AD
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling and similar stone, facial expression, and losses. Note the much smaller size (46 cm).
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction:...
