AN EGYPTIAN INDURATED LIMESTONE HEAD OF A KING EARLY PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, C. 305 – 200 B.C. |

the idealised face inlaid with almond-shaped eyes beneath blue eyebrows, above a tall nose, prominent lips and traces of a ceremonial beard, wearing a smooth nemes headcloth centred by a fragmentary uraeus, the stone patinated to caramel-brown and beige tones with natural veins, supported on a wood stand bearing a stamp of the Japanese wood artist Kichizô Inagaki (1876-1951)

Paris art market, 1920s-1930s (based on the Inagaki-stamped custom-made wooden stand).
A French family collection, acquired in the 1930s and 1940s.
A Belgian private collection, acquired in the 1960s.
Sotheby's New York, 12th December 2014, lot 4.

For related royal heads with inlaid eyes see P.E. Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs, Austin, Texas, 2002, pp. 172-173, and 175. Also see a late 11th or early 12th Dynasty head with inlaid eyes and eyebrows in the Louvre, inv. no. E 10299 (E. Delange, Catalogue des statues égyptiennes du Moyen Empire, 2060-1560 avant J.C., Paris, 1987, pp. 36-37, illus.).  A Late Period bust of a king in the British Museum appears to imitate the statue of Djoser in his Serdab; see F. Tiradritti, Pharoanic Renaissance, Ljubljana, 2008, cat. no. 134.