ARCHEOLOGIES
EGYPT
SHARING MY PASSION ...
For more than 40 years, I’ve been collecting Egyptian antiquities. This passion was born on the one hand from a fascination for what appears as one of the oldest civilisations in history, and on the other hand, from my connexions with different museums and the Parisian auction-rooms. During the following years, my readings and my experience brought me the knowledge that allowed me to better understand the items. When starting a collection, this part is not the easiest one !
As a collector, it is usual to see one’s collection evolve. Improving his own taste, one has to separate from some objects in order to acquire new ones. However, I wanted to keep one of my first acquisitions : a little votive dating from the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, probably from the 26th Dynasty (around 664 to 525 B.C.), representing the lioness goddess Maat-Sekhmet. Indeed, this character has always intrigued me with her head surmounted by a crown composed with the uræus and the solar disk, an ostrich feather behind it.
Sharing a passion also includes offering to the others a selection of mine. Thus, you will discover ten items I chose for their diversity, both in time and in their shapes and materials…
Finally, I have selected as emblem of the website a little statuette of Bastet from the Saite Period, represented with three kittens at her feet. When I bought it, I had a crush for the artefact ! The craftsman who made it according to the cast with lost wax method, had a really developed expertise and a good taste.
The statuette represents a really realistic female body and a cat’s head, probably with inlaid eyes. The goddess wears a skinny dress decorated with finely chiseled geometric patterns. She holds in her left hand a Sekhmet headed aegis — intended to ward off the evil powers and to soothe the divinity who, in return, granted her protection — and she bears in the hollow of her arm a miniature of Horus-the-child. Her folded right arm surely held a sistrum.
Green patina bronze.
Visible height : 10 cm (3,94 in).