Huge Egyptian Limestone Coffin Lid w/ Face

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic period, ca. 664 to 30 BCE. An enormous coffin lid, hand-carved from soft white limestone, in the form of a stylized human head. The colossal countenance presents with sensitive, wide-set, almond-shaped eyes peering out at the viewer from beneath gently curved brows, a smooth nose with flared nostrils, high cheek bones above a rounded chin, and full lips with a grooved philtrum, and cupped ears, all beneath the folds of a simple bag wig. The pupils and eye lid outlines are accentuated with applied jet-black pigment that stands in stark contrast to the stone's milky hue. Coffin lids carved from stone like this example were carved by sculptors commissioned by families who could afford higher quality materials but perhaps not finer mediums like hardwoods, gilding, and polychrome pigments. Size: 16.625" W x 15.75" H (42.2 cm x 40 cm); 19.25" H (48.9 cm) on included custom stand.

Another comparable example, though with pigmentation, was featured at Sotheby's New York (8 December 2015), lot 27 with a $200,000 to $300,000 estimate. A catalogue note reads, "Cf. Sue D'Auria, Peter Lacovara, and Catharine H. Roehrig, Mummies & Magic, The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt, Boston, 1988, p. 193, no. 139, for a similar sarcophagus mask slightly later in date. The author writes that it "belongs to a class that evolved in Dynasty 30, and continued in use well into the Ptolemaic Period. Some dated examples were found by Petrie in Cemetery B at Abydos, belonging to Dynasty 30, and later sarcophagi of the same type are recorded from Qau and Akhmim. They usually bear inscriptions down the front in vertical columns, and additional decoration could be provided at the sides in the form of representations of the Four Sons of Horus or other funerary deities. Large wesekh-collars with falcon-headed terminals are also a feature of certain examples of this type of sarcophagus. Many uninscribed sarcophagi of this shape and material are known; they may be unfinished, or the painted decoration has not survived."

Provenance: private J.H. collection, Beaverton, Oregon, USA; ex-Relics of the Nile, Lexington, Kentucky, USA; ex-private S.O. Simonian collection, Switzerland

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#149584
Condition Report: Repaired from multiple large pieces, with chips and light adhesive residue along break lines. Abrasions and nicks to obverse, nose, peripheries, and verso as shown, with light fading to original pigmentation, and light encrustations. Great earthen deposits throughout.