Egyptian
Provenance
Professor Jehudah Collection, Yale, USAWith J.J. Klejman, New York, 1957
Dominique de Menil (1908-1997) Collection, New York, gifted by the above in 1957 and then given as a Christmas present to the de Menils' daughter Marie-Christophe in December 1963, thence by descent
John and Dominique de Menil were French art collectors and philanthropists who left their Nazi-occupied homeland in 1941, ultimately settling in Houston. As John rose to prominence in the oil industry, he and Dominique developed a passion for collecting art. Inspired by their friendship with Father Marie-Alain Couturier, a Dominican priest who championed a new religious art, the de Menils became fascinated with art of a religious and spiritual nature.
Recognising spiritual and artistic links between contemporary art and the traditions that preceded it, the couple's enthusiasm soon extended to the arts of tribal cultures, and later to antiquities and medieval and Byzantine art. The Menil Collection, which opened in 1987, fourteen years after John's passing, is celebrated for its modern and contemporary masterpieces and holds one of the world’s foremost collections of Surrealist art. Just as important, the museum remains true to the de Menils' vision of art as a spiritual pursuit.
Exhibitions
Other Voices: An Exhibition of Artifacts of Religious and Super-Natural Beliefs of Other Cultures, Jones Hall Fine Arts Gallery, University of St. Thomas, Houston, October 25-December 16, 1962, no. 16 in the catalogueLiterature
Such spoons are likely to have been used as a luxury implement for the preparation and application of perfumes and cosmetics. Hand-held shell spoons begin in the Middle Kingdom in an elongated form and one in Berlin is inscribed ‘it is to the beloved of Horus and the beloved of the city god that I have given incense’ implying that such spoons also had ritual uses: I. Wallert, ‘Der verzierte Löffel: seine Formgeschichte und Verwendung im alten Ägypten’, Ägyptologische Abhandlungen, 16, Wiesbaden, 1967, p. 77, pl. 8.
Unguents, oils, and perfumes made from aromatic plant resins and gums were obtained at great cost from distant lands and the objects associated with incense and cosmetics were opulent items. Already common in the New Kingdom, the hand-shell type persisted in the Third Intermediate Period, with some differences in the material and innovations in the overall shape (Bulté 2008). During the Late Period archaising examples harking back to the New Kingdom were produced. For a closely-related Saite - Persian period example in Cairo (CG 18573) see Bulté, J. 2008, 'Cuillers d’offrandes en faïence et en pierre messagères de bien-être et de prospérité', Revue d’Égyptologie 59, Paris, 1-32, pl II, a/b.