**Holiday Shipping Deadlines**
USA Domestic: 12/14 for Standard; 12/23 for Express
International: 12/7 for Standard; 12/19 for Express
Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic period, ca. 664 to 30 BCE. A hand-built plaster sculptor's model of a youthful head that perhaps represents the child from a wealthy or even royal family. The head bears an enlarged form with veristic features such as cupped ears, deep-set eyes beneath heavy brows, a slender nose, and full lips with indented corners. Traces of white and brown pigment are visible across the obverse, and faint areas of orange-red pigment are visible along the peripheries. Size: 2.125" W x 3" H (5.4 cm x 7.6 cm); 6.25" H (15.9 cm) on included custom stand.
While sculptors' models appear to be from larger composite figures, their incomplete presentation could be an entirely separate item typology. Ancient Greek sculptural incompleteness was a generic form of presentation as the viewer could extrapolate who or what a sculpture was meant to represent. In contrast, the ancient Egyptians would view an incomplete votive work of art only as it was: part of a bird, a disembodied head, or in one instance the hind quarters of a lion. According to Eric Young of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "When we consider the Egyptian pieces as sculptors' models, however, their incompleteness is no longer disturbing, but entirely understandable. As is the case with unquestioned sculptors' models...the apprentice sculptor concentrated his energies on those portions of the figure that he found intriguing, or most difficult, and the master sculptor demonstrated the correct way to delineate a head..." ("Sculptors' Models or Votives? In Defense of a Scholarly Tradition." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, March 1964, p. 255).
Provenance: private Dere collection, New Jersey, USA acquired before 2000
All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
We ship worldwide and handle all shipping in-house for your convenience.
#140420
Condition
Chips and losses to areas of nose, chin, neck, peripheries, and verso as shown. Abrasions and nicks to face and peripheries, with light encrustations, and fading to areas of original pigment. Nice earthen deposits and faint traces of original pigmentation throughout.