Egyptian
An Egyptian polychrome wood mummy mask, Third Intermediate Period, circa 945 - 715 BC
Wood
Height: 35.5 cm
Preserving the head section from an anthropoid lid, decorated with polychromy over gesso. White has been used for the skin tones, and black for the eye outlines, irises, brows and...
Preserving the head section from an anthropoid lid, decorated with polychromy over gesso. White has been used for the skin tones, and black for the eye outlines, irises, brows and cosmetic lines, a black dot in between the brows. Red has been used for under the nose and below the chin. The broad wig is well preserved and divided into three bands of decoration, with a scarab beetle and red sun disk decorating the middle section.
Provenance
Syril Frank (1929 - 2021) Collection, New York, acquired before 1972Exhibitions
Archaeology of the Bible Lands, Objects from Long Island Collections 6000 B.C. to 400 A.D., Garvies Point Museum, Glen Cove, New York, 10 December 1972 - 31 January 1973Literature
Coffins of this period were sometimes given minimal embellishment, with the body likely left unadorned. According to C.M. Rocheleau (Ancient Egyptian Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, 2012, p. 44), 'while sufficient for ancient Egyptian purposes, this simplification...was deemed deficient in graphic interest by nineteenth-century collectors and antiquarians, who preferred flamboyant and elaborately decorated coffins. As a result the colorful heads were cut from the undecorated portions of the coffins and sold as is.'For further discussion and a for a coffin with a similar face, see S. D'Auria, P. Lacovara, and C.H. Roehrig, Mummies & Magic, The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt, no. 121, p. 169.