Face from a Coffin Lid

Face from a Coffin Lid

Late Period, Dynasty 25, 722-655 BC

Egypt, Faiyum

Wood, gesso, pigment, bronze, resin (?)
45.7 cm High x 31 cm x 12 cm

2018.010.420

The deceased is shown wearing a blue tripartite wig with yellow stripes and a false beard. His eyes are inlaid and rimmed. Only three upper rows of the broad collar remain and a portion of drop-shaped beads in red, green, blue and yellow at the figure’s bottom left. The gesso remaining portion of the upper torso is painted white. Resin was painted over the pigment, which has yellowed over time.

This upper part of a coffin lid is typical of cemeteries in and around the Faiyum in Egypt. Coffins are typified by the deceased wearing a flat-topped wig with broad stripes, a long beard, and a white coffin body decorated only with a collar.

The coffin face was purchased by Georges Ricard for the Senusret Collection on 31 March 1973 in Marseille, France at the Ventes aux enchères publiques en l’Hotel des ventes du Prado, lot number 193.

Gift of the Georges Ricard Foundation

Parallels and References:
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, no. 1995.94