Late Period Wooden Panel Fragment featuring Imentet

Private East Coast Collection.. Art Market New York, 2004. D. Zahler Collection, Newport Beach California. Thence by descent.

Consolidated from two large fragments and part of a larger whole. Losses to peripheries. Expected surface wear with some losses to gesso and pigments, stable fissures, commensurate with age. A few minor areas of repainting. Otherwise, excellent with impressive remaining pigments, as well as nice areas of crazing and encrustations.

Following the decline of elaborately decorated burial chambers during the later phases of ancient Egyptian civilization, the anthropoid coffin assumed a far more significant ritual role. No longer serving solely as a container for the deceased, it became the principal bearer of the sacred imagery and funerary inscriptions that had once adorned the walls of tombs. Its carefully arranged combination of texts and iconography, drawn from centuries of established funerary tradition, was believed to possess powerful protective qualities. These spells and divine representations were intended to guide the deceased safely through the afterlife and ensure eternal renewal in the idyllic Field of Reeds, the Egyptian paradise. Throughout this spiritual journey, a host of protective deities stood watch--just as Imentet does on the present example--to safeguard the body and assist the deceased in achieving everlasting life.

for a comparable image of the Goddess of the West, painted in the second coffin of the lady Nes-mut-aat-neru in Boston, see S. D’Auria, P. Lacovara, C.H. Roehrig, Mummies and Magic, The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt, Boston , 1988, cat. 125b.