Description:
A highly interesting hollow statuette, dating from the Coptic period in Egypt and coming from Lower Egypt; the object was created in a two-piece mould, using yellowish-brown clay, decorated with white wash for the skin, red pigment on the tunic, and details and vertical bands in black.
Shown is a standing female figure with large eyes, the arms raised. Her head is surrounded by a triangle, the shape of which recalls the handles of a lamp, and which is pierced with three holes, possibly for suspension, two at ear level and one at the top. This triangle has been explained as a sort of nimbus (a luminous cloud or a halo surrounding a the head of a saint or a transcendent being), but also as a wreath framing the hair, adorned with a diadem.
The figure is wearing a long-sleeved tunic with vertically arranged, painted stripes, representing clavi (broad stripes or bands that were either worn over the tunic or woven or sewn into it). A garland can be seen around the neck of the figure, below which a pendant or medaillon is visible. At the rear is a long band or stem, executed in relief.
A few parallels to the type are known; there is for example a close parallel, of lesser quality though, in the British Museum (inventory no. EA37597), which is described as a female saint or beneficent demon, holding her hands raised in blessing and protection. The British Museum also gives comparanda, including our statuette; sometimes these are described as depicting a figure in prayer, the arms outstretched. However, it is debatable whether early Christianity would depict religious human beings. The idea that these figures may represent a transcendent being or a saint seems more plausible.
Perdrizet (p. 6) has pointed out that such figurines have been quite wrongly attributed to Christian art. He points to the fact that at the end of the classical Egyptian culture, especially in remote provinces, the quality of art suddenly declined and seemed to become primitive again, as if returning to its childhood; he refers to this as "barbarism" which, together with the form of inscriptions in relief and embroidered clavi that sometimes occur on these statuettes, indicates the last epoch of Greco-Egyptian paganism.
Perdrizet has included his publication of this statuette in a chapter devoted to statuettes of Isis-Aphrodite; in the publication the figure has the number 12, whereas nos. 11 and 13 clearly represent Aphrodite. It seems clear that the author identified our statuette as this goddess, and indeed, much of its decoration recalls the adornments of Isis-Aphrodite, such as the diadem and the long vertical bands (sometimes pieces of fabric and sometimes metal chains), joined in the middle by a medallion (compare Perdrizet, p. 2).
Published:
Perdrizet (1921) I, Texte, p. 6, no. 12; II, Planches, pl. VI.
Bibliography:
Morris L. Bierbrier, Who was Who in Egyptology (4th revised edition, London, Egypt Exploration Society, 2012), p. 197;
Thérèse Charmasson, "Les collections du Dr. Fouquet et la publication des bronzes grecs d’Égypte de la collection Fouquet et des terres cuites d’Égypte de la collection Fouquet par Paul Perdrizet”, Proceedings of Colloque International Paul Perdrizet, savant européen et industriel lorrain (1870-1938), 7-9 November 2018 (forthcoming);
Émile Chassinat, Les antiquités égyptiennes de la collection Fouquet (Paris, 1922);
Paul Perdrizet, Les terres cuites grecques d’Égypte de la collection Fouquet I, Texte; II, Planches (Nancy-Paris-Strasbourg, Berger-Levrault, 1921);
Christina Riggs, Unwrapping Ancient Egypt (London, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), p. 64; 84-85 and fig. 3.3;
Cecilia Benavente Vicente, "'Lost Art' aus Leontopolis (Tell el-Moqdam): Die Sammlung Fouquet. Die Provenienz der Statue von Amun und Mut (Walters Art Museum 22.65)", Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Band 49 (2020), p. 1-6;
Cecilia Benavente Vicente, "Ptolemy III Euergetes in Leontopolis (Tell el-Moqdam)? The lost statue of the god Hermes-Triptolemus from the former Fouquet collection (Calouste Gulbenkian Museum Inv. No. 45)", ENIM, Égypte nilotique et méditerranéenne, vol. 14, 2021, p. 91-114.
Dating:
Egypt, Coptic Period, circa 6th - 7th century C.E.
Size:
Height 14.2 cm.
Provenance:
Collection of Dr. Daniel Marie Fouquet (16 March 1850 - 13 August 1914), Cairo; published in 1921.
Dr. Fouquet was a French doctor, who moved to Cairo in 1881. There he assisted Maspero and other Egyptologists during their medical examinations of mummies, and took an active part in the unwrapping of mummies, including royal mummies. A large-scale oil canvas painted by Philippoteaux in 1891, titled Examen d'une momie, shows the unwrapping of the mummy of a priestess called Tawedjara by Dr. Fouquet in the presence of several Egyptologists (Riggs, p. 84).
Dr. Fouquet started what would be come his extensive collection of Egyptian, Coptic and Islamic antiquities in 1882 in Cairo; with each acquisition he enquired about, and kept record of, the exact find spot of the object. He was known for buying what he liked without considering the price. Maspero in one of his letters (dated 14 December 1885) wrote "The smallest bronze sells for seven hundred to eight hundred francs: this is due to Dr. Fouquet, who buys at all costs and has doubled the value of antiques" (Cecilia Benavente Vicente (2021), p. 103). After his death the collection was dispersed through auction at Hotel Drouot in Paris in June 1922.
Condition:
Intact, of museum quality, with only some minuscule damage; an inventory number inscribed on the back in ink, reading "655". Comes with a modern black stand.
SOLD
Stock number:
E1339