An Indurated Limestone Head of King Ptolemy II, Ptolemaic Period, reign of Ptolemy II, 285-246 B.C.

Estimate

60,000 - 90,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

An Indurated Limestone Head of King Ptolemy II
Height 6 1/8 in. 15.6 cm.

probably a sculptor's model, the king wearing the nemes-headcloth with unfinished uraeus, his youthful and idealized face with smiling mouth, outlined lips, large eyes with long slender cosmetic lines in relief, and black-painted irises, the long eyebrows in shallow relief, the ears boldly carved, gridlines on the back, top, and proper left side.

Provenance

Belgian private collection
Rupert Wace, London, 1989
Peter Sharrer, New York
Jack Josephson Collection, New York, 1990

Catalogue Note

For related examples cf. Baltimore, Egyptian Sculpture, nos. 298-303, and Cleopatra's Egypt, Age of the Ptolemies, cat. 1. A limestone head of Arsinoe II, wife of Ptolemy II, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibits a very similar treatment of the cosmetic lines; see Bothmer, Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, no. 98, figs 244-246 (Cleopatra of Egypt, no. 6).