A Polychrome Limestone Group, late Ptolemaic/Roman Period, circa 1st Century B.C. / 1st Century A.D.

carved with a couple lying on a couch and embracing, his hands resting against her left arm and nape of the neck, her hands holding his left shoulder and resting on her cheek, their heads supported on two woven pillows, woven mats underneath, a large fragmentary phallus lying beside them, a small nude figure, his gaze averted, seated at the end of the couch and serenading the couple on the harp; the number S.253. in read underneath.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing (1873-1956), Munich and Oberaudorf
by descent and marriage to the present owner

For a related erotic group (symplegma) in The Brooklyn Museum of Art see Cleopatra's Egypt, no. 130. For other examples in stone or faience see R.S. Bianchi, "Erotic Representations in Egyptian Art," The Archaeological Institute of America, Abstracts 3, Thirtieth General Meeting. Vancouver, British Columbia, December 28-30, 1978, p. 22.

The great Egyptologist Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing, grandson of Mathilde Wesendonck, Richard Wagner's muse, taught at the University of Munich from 1906 to 1922. Among his numerous publications are the volumes of the Catalogue général of the Cairo Museum devoted to metal, faience, and stone vases. Objects from his personal collection of Egyptian art are now in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam,  the Kestner Museum in Hanover, and various other public and private collections (see the index to J. Malek, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings, Oxford, 1999, vol. VIII, p. 125).