Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model
Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model
Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model
Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model
Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model

Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model

SKU: MS.0001

Origin: Egypt
Circa: Early Ptolemaic Period, 4th Century BC to 3rd Century BC
Dimensions: 12" Height x 10.25" Width, 6.25" Height x 4.5" Width (without frame)
Medium: Limestone

This superb sculptors model is carved in raised relief with the bust of a pharaoh in profile to the right. The noble face features a prominent chin and thick lips. A delicate eye-line and brow lay beneath the headdress head band, which sits just above the well rendered right ear.  A broad collar is indicated below, with a raised border to the left. The entire rectangular limestone composition is beautifully mounted in a dark brown frame with burgundy matting.  

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with André Le Veel, Paris, 1950s. Private collection, France. with Gudea Gallery, Paris, 1982.

Repaired, with break line running horizontally across the piece at cheek level, running through cheek, with a large area of restoration over the cheek and running above the top lip, the repair line running under lips and out through the right edge of the piece. Overall the edges with worn flaked chips and nicks. Top right corner with repaired chip. Worn flaked chips over the face including the ear, brow, upper eyeline, tip of nose and nostril and to the top edge of the collar. Some light scratches to the surface including a diagonal scratch on the upper neck at jaw level. Bolted onto a velvet-backed wood frame mount.

Skilled Egyptian sculptors used small and easily transportable model slabs, to carve or practice carving relief sculptures. These models are known to have already been in use during the New Kingdom, but they became more widespread in the Late and Ptolemaic periods.

The head of the figure on our slab is depicted in profile, according to the canons of the early period, with the eye and front shoulder facing the viewer, however the style of the carving: the rounded face and large creased lips betray that the model is of a later period, that of the early Ptolemaic Era.

Young, Eric 1964. "Sculptors' Models or Votives?: In Defense of a Scholarly Tradition."

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Ptolemaic

Egyptian Limestone Sculptor's Model

Ptolemaic

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