DAY 2 Antiquities, Tribal, African, Asian Art

Lot: 331 - Akkadian Hematite Cylinder Seal with Contest Scene and Cuneiform Inscription

Near East, Mesopotamia, Akkadian. A dense contest scene wraps this polished black hematite cylinder, cut in crisp intaglio so that a single roll across damp clay yields a continuous frieze. A rearing lion savages an ibex; a second lion springs upon a long-tailed bearded deity; a third bearded god braces with one leg raised, and a beehive-like element fills the field below. Three columns of cuneiform, framed between the combatants, record the owner's name and titles. Hard hematite demanded copper drills and abrasive powders, and its weight and mirror-black surface marked the seal as an object of standing. Worn on a cord or pin, such seals authenticated contracts and sealed storeroom doors, functioning at once as signature, amulet, and badge of office. The contest scene, in which heroes, gods, lions, and horned herbivores lock in perpetual struggle, is the signature composition of Akkadian glyptic. Under Sargon of Akkad and his successors, seal cutters abandoned the crowded friezes of the Early Dynastic period for tightly balanced groups of two and three figures modeled with new anatomical confidence, a shift often credited to royal workshops serving an imperial bureaucracy that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the upper Euphrates.\n\nHematite, an iron oxide prized for its density and metallic luster, became the dominant seal stone of the later third and second millennia BCE. Its hardness rewarded the drill and cutting wheel with sharp, deeply undercut forms that survive rolling after rolling, which is why Akkadian hematite seals still deliver impressions as legible as the day they were carved. The inscription panel, reserved between figures, is standard practice: the owner's name, patronymic, and office, turning a picture into a legal instrument. Item # 73270

Lot: 332 - Akkadian Marble Cylinder Seal with Procession of Six Bearded Figures

Near East, Mesopotamia, Akkadian. A white marble cylinder carved in intaglio so that a single roll across damp clay unfurls a procession of six bearded men, each in a knee-length skirt with a fringed center flap, hair gathered into a heavy rear bun, all striding right with an offering held at the chest. Before them stands a small winged figure, front-facing and diminutive against the file of worshippers. The engraving is crisp and deeply cut, the stone worn to a soft ancient sheen, and the vertical string channel remains open through the axis. Seals of this kind were personal signatures, worn on a cord and rolled over tablets and jar sealings to authenticate transactions and mark ownership. The cylinder seal is Mesopotamia's most characteristic contribution to the history of the image: a miniature stone drum engraved in reverse, meaningless to the eye until it is rolled, at which point it produces a continuous frieze of any length the scribe requires. Under the Akkadian kings, from Sargon through Naram-Sin, glyptic art reached a technical peak, with modeled musculature, careful spacing, and a sculptural sense of the body that separates it from the crowded, linear compositions of the preceding Early Dynastic workshops. Repeating files of near-identical worshippers bearing offerings belong to the presentation and procession repertoire, in which a devotee, or a whole retinue, approaches a seated deity or shrine. The small winged figure heading the line is the unusual element here: winged beings enter the Mesopotamian visual vocabulary in the Akkadian period, and their identification remains debated among specialists. Item # 73271

Lot: 333 - Akkadian Cylinder Seal with Presentation Scene, Crescent and Star

Mesopotamia, Akkadian Empire. A dark stone cylinder seal, carved in intaglio so that rolling it across damp clay releases a full court scene in relief. Two figures sit enthroned on latticework stools, each in a long fringed garment, gesturing toward a standing worshipper or attendant who clasps the hands at the waist. A leafy tree rises behind the right-hand throne, while a crescent moon and an eight-rayed star hang overhead, astral emblems of Sin and Inanna-Ishtar. Drilled lengthwise for suspension, such seals served as personal signatures, pressed onto tablets, jar stoppers, and door sealings to authenticate and secure property. The composition is unusually full and legible for its scale. The Akkadian Empire, forged by Sargon of Akkad around 2334 BCE, produced the most accomplished glyptic art of the ancient Near East. Its seal cutters abandoned the crowded friezes of the Early Dynastic period for spare, monumental compositions in which individual figures are modeled with anatomical confidence and set in ample open field, exactly the register seen here. Presentation and audience scenes dominate the repertoire: a suppliant led or standing before a seated deity or ruler, the encounter framed by divine emblems. The crescent belongs to Sin, god of the moon, and the eight-pointed star to Inanna-Ishtar, goddess of love and war; together they place the meeting under the sanction of heaven. The tree, a recurring shorthand for fertility and abundance, anchors the scene in the ordered, irrigated landscape the Akkadian kings claimed to guarantee. Item # 73272

Lot: 334 - Akkadian Cylinder Seal with Contest Scene of Heroes and Bull-Men

Near East, Mesopotamia, Akkadian. A pale, creamy white stone cylinder, pierced lengthwise and carved in intaglio so that rolling it across damp clay yields a continuous frieze of seven figures. Three standing anthropomorphic deities grapple with four horned, bull-like beings, some rearing on their hind legs in the interlocked contest scheme that defines Akkadian glyptic. The cutting is deep and confident, with drilled joints and modeled musculature giving each body real volume at very small scale. Warm ochre earth deposits settle into the recesses and throw the design into relief. Such seals functioned as personal signatures and administrative devices, worn on a cord and rolled over clay tablets, sealings, and jar stoppers to authenticate and protect property. The contest frieze is the signature composition of the Akkadian period, when the dynasty founded by Sargon of Akkad unified southern Mesopotamia and its seal cutters abandoned the crowded, repetitive friezes of Early Dynastic glyptic for balanced, sculpturally modeled groups of two and three figures. Nude heroes with curled locks and human-headed bulls wrestle lions and horned quadrupeds in symmetrical pairings whose meaning is still debated: the scenes have been read as the protection of herds, as cosmological struggle between order and wilderness, and as heraldic emblems of divine authority rather than illustrations of any single myth.\n\nCylinder seals were the most personal objects an ancient Mesopotamian owned. Cut with copper tools, abrasive powders, and a bow-driven drill, each was unique, and the impression it produced carried the legal weight of a name. Many were buried with their owners; others were passed down, re-cut, or dedicated in temples. Item # 73273

Lot: 335 - Assyrian Lapis Lazuli Cylinder Seal with Winged Goddess and Serpents

Near East, Mesopotamia, Assyrian. A miniature cylinder of deep blue lapis lazuli, its curved face engraved in intaglio so that a single roll across damp clay unfurls a divine assembly. At the center stands a winged goddess, frontal and nude, her horned headdress marking divinity, flanked by two undulating serpents. Two female attendants approach from either side, each bearing an offering, their bodies rendered in compact drilled volumes typical of second-millennium glyptic work. Seals of this kind served as personal signatures, pressed onto tablets, jar stoppers, and door sealings to authenticate transactions, while the costly imported stone and the potent iconography likely doubled the object's role as an amulet worn on a cord at the wrist or throat. Lapis lazuli reached Mesopotamia from the Sar-i-Sang mines of Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan, some two thousand miles distant, and its use for a seal signals an owner of rank. The frontal winged goddess with serpents belongs to a visual family often connected with Ishtar in her astral and martial aspects, though naked frontal goddesses in Old Babylonian and Middle Assyrian glyptic are also read as protective genii rather than named deities. Serpents in this register carry chthonic and apotropaic force, guardians as much as threats. The cylinder seal, invented in late fourth-millennium Mesopotamia, remained in continuous use for three millennia, making it one of the longest-lived instruments of administration and identity in the ancient world. Item # 73274

Lot: 336 - Jamdat Nasr Stamp Seal with Lion Attacking Ibex, Steatite

Ancient Near East, Jamdat Nasr period. A lion lunges across the face of this domed black steatite stamp seal, jaws open at the throat of a long-horned ibex whose body doubles back beneath it. Drilled pellets scatter through the field as filler, and the whole composition is cut in confident curving grooves that read cleanly in impression. The convex back, shaped like a turtle shell, carries an incised herringbone pattern radiating from a central axis, and a biconical hole bored through the body allowed the seal to hang from a cord at the wrist or neck. Such seals authenticated goods and sealings of clay, pressed into stoppers and door fastenings, and the predation motif belongs to a long Mesopotamian visual vocabulary of animal combat. Stamp seals with high domed or "turtleback" profiles and pierced bodies are among the earliest instruments of administrative control in the ancient Near East, predating the widespread adoption of the cylinder seal and continuing alongside it in provincial and peripheral workshops. Their owners used them to secure commodities: soft clay was pressed over jar mouths, basket lids, and door bolts, then stamped, so that any tampering destroyed the mark.\n\nThe lion-and-ibex encounter is one of the oldest and most durable motifs in Mesopotamian and Persian glyptic. Predator and prey locked together express, at minimum, the wild world outside the settlement, and in later periods the pairing accrues royal and cosmological readings. Here the carver has compressed both animals into a circular field, bending the ibex's horns to follow the border and filling the voids with drill-point pellets, a shorthand common to steatite seal workshops working at speed. Item # 73275

Lot: 337 - Sasanian Banded Agate Stamp Seals with Confronted Stags, Pair

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A pair of dome-form stamp seals cut from banded agate, one warm brown and cream, the other layered in cream, amber and near-black strata. Each is drilled laterally for suspension, and each bears an oval intaglio device of two standing stags confronted, antlers raised and flanks marked with crisp linear striations, engraved with the wheel and drill in the compact idiom of late Sasanian glyptic. Such seals served as personal signets, pressed into clay sealings to authenticate documents, goods and stores, and were worn on a cord as both credential and amulet. The paired stags likely carry a charge of fertility and good fortune rather than portraiture. Sasanian seals are among the most abundant surviving artifacts of the empire, and their imagery ranges from royal busts and Zoroastrian fire altars to single animals, monograms and inscriptions in Pahlavi. Domed and hemispherical forms with a lateral suspension hole, as here, are characteristic of the later empire, when the seal doubled as a wearable pendant. Animal devices dominate the non-official repertoire: stags, rams, boars and horses read as bringers of khwarrah, the divine fortune or glory that Sasanian thought attached to kings, animals and fortunate men alike. Confronted pairs flanking an implied axis descend from a far older Near Eastern heraldic scheme, retained here in shorthand. Item # 73276

Lot: 338 - Neo-Assyrian Conoid Stamp Seals with Ibex, Scorpion-Man and Lunar Symbols (2)

Near East, Mesopotamia, Neo-Assyrian. A pair of oval conoid stamp seals, pierced for suspension and carved in hardstone. The first, in white stone, presents on its base two horned ibex chest to chest with heads turned apart, while its flanks bear a scorpion-man, muscular and human above with a long curved tail, and a bearded figure in a long robe raising an object in one hand. The second, a translucent white agate, is engraved with a winged element beneath a crescent moon flanked by two small stars. Both were personal devices, rolled or pressed into damp clay to seal jars, doors, and documents, the imagery serving as signature and amulet at once. The scorpion-man (girtablullu) guards the gates of the sun's rising in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and appears through Neo-Assyrian art as an apotropaic sentinel, set into palace reliefs and buried as clay figurines beneath thresholds to repel malignant forces. The crescent and stars on the agate belong to the standard Neo-Assyrian astral vocabulary: the crescent of Sin, moon god of Harran, with stellar emblems commonly read as Ishtar's Venus star and the Pleiades or Sibitti.\n\nConoid seals of this shape supplanted the older cylinder as the dominant sealing form in the first millennium BCE, worn on a cord at the wrist or neck and used to authenticate contracts, letters, and stored goods across the Assyrian bureaucracy. Item # 73277

Lot: 339 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals with Lion and Bull-Headed Figure (2)

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A pair of domed agate stamp seals in warm amber and cream banding, each drilled longitudinally for suspension on a cord or wire. The flat faces carry intaglio devices cut with a drill and cutting wheel: one shows a lion springing upon a bull, the ancient predation motif of royal power; the other a standing figure with the head of a horned bull, a smaller human head set before the waist. Seals of this form served as personal signatures, pressed into clay bullae to close and authenticate letters, sacks, and storerooms, and doubled as amulets worn at the wrist or neck. Modern impressions accompany the pair. Sasanian seals are the densest surviving record of the empire's administrative and personal life. Carved chiefly in chalcedony, carnelian, and agate, they were owned across the social spectrum, from mobads and provincial officials to private landholders, and their devices ranged from portrait busts and Pahlavi legends to animals, plants, and hybrid beings. The lion-and-bull combat is inherited from a visual vocabulary already ancient at Persepolis, where it decorated the Achaemenid apadana stairways, and it retained its associations with sovereignty and astral order into the Sasanian period. Bull-headed anthropomorphic figures are rarer and less securely read; they are generally understood as demonic or apotropaic beings, and the small head placed before the body may be a trophy or a subdued adversary rather than an attribute. Item # 73278

Lot: 340 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals with Royal Bust and Crest, Pair

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A pair of domed agate stamp seals, each transversely drilled for suspension and cut with an intaglio device on its flattened face. The larger, banded in root beer and cream, carries a crest-like emblem of paired crescents and volutes flanking a standard, enclosed by a beaded border. Its companion, mottled cream and white, bears the profile bust of a bearded king in a beribboned cap, three stars ranged across his chest within a dotted frame. Cut with rotary drill and wheel into hardstone, such seals served as personal signatures, pressed into clay bullae to close and authenticate documents, sacks, and jars across the Sasanian administrative world. Sasanian sealing practice was among the most systematic of late antiquity. Officials, priests, landowners, and private individuals each carried a personal seal, usually a domed or ellipsoid chalcedony, agate, or carnelian pierced for wear on a cord or set into a ring. Impressions were made into lumps of clay securing correspondence and stored goods; excavated archives at sites such as Qasr-i Abu Nasr and Takht-i Sulaiman have yielded thousands of such bullae, allowing scholars to reconstruct networks of office and estate. The vocabulary of the devices is equally structured. Portrait busts, often crowned or diademed and accompanied by stars and crescents, evoke royal and astral authority; abstract emblems of the kind on the larger seal here belong to the family of nishan, heraldic marks identifying a house or office rather than depicting a subject. Zoroastrian symbolism suffuses both registers, the stars and crescent invoking celestial protection. Item # 73279

Lot: 341 - Sasanian Banded Agate Stamp Seals with Royal Busts, Group of 4

Western Asia, Persia, Sasanian Empire. A quartet of domed banded agate sealstones, their brown and cream strata polished to a lustrous curve above flat engraved faces. Three carry a bearded male bust in profile, hair bound in a fillet and drapery gathered at the shoulder, two of them ringed by a border inscription. The fourth abandons the portrait for a personal device, a crescent above linked geometric elements, framed by script. Each is pierced through the body for suspension, worn on a cord or at the wrist. Cut with the drill and wheel into one of the hardest stones available to the lapidary, seals of this kind authenticated documents and secured goods, functioning simultaneously as signature, amulet, and badge of standing. Sasanian seals survive in greater numbers than almost any other class of Persian antiquity, and they were genuinely ubiquitous: clergy, landowners, magistrates, and merchants each carried one, and Pahlavi legal texts treat the sealing as legally binding. The border legends typically give a personal name with a patronymic, an office, or a pious formula such as apastan o yazdan ("trust in the gods"). Non-figural devices, the nishan or personal emblem, combine crescents, stars, rings, and hooked strokes into heraldic monograms whose grammar is still imperfectly understood.\n\nThe profile bust, beard curled and dressed, ribboned diadem streaming, borrows the visual language of Sasanian royal coinage without necessarily portraying a king; private owners adopted the courtly idiom for themselves. Banded agate was prized for exactly the effect visible here, the engraver working the pale stratum against a darker ground so the intaglio reads clearly in wax and clay. Item # 73280

Lot: 342 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals, Winged Figure and Altar, Group of 3

Western Asia, Persia, Sasanian Empire. A trio of dome-shaped agate stamp seals, two warm orange and one near-colorless, each body faceted with shallow circular hollows and pierced laterally for suspension. The intaglio faces carry distinct devices: the largest, a winged figure striding within a beaded border and holding a long banner; the smaller orange stone, a symmetrical emblem of crescents and rings read as a personal or family device; and the translucent example, a stylized fire altar rendered in crisp linear strokes. Cut with wheel and drill into hardstone, such seals served as legal signatures, pressed into clay bullae to close and authenticate documents, sacks, and letters throughout the Sasanian bureaucracy. Sasanian seals are the most abundant surviving artifacts of the empire's administration. Worn on a cord at the wrist or neck, they sealed the clay bullae that secured correspondence and goods, and their devices functioned as legally binding identifiers of individuals, offices, and religious institutions. The faceted or "pearled" dome, hollowed with a rotary tool into overlapping circular depressions, is a characteristic later Sasanian form.\n\nThe fire altar seen on the colorless stone is the central emblem of Zoroastrianism, the state religion, and appears on Sasanian coinage from Ardashir I onward; the sacred flame maintained on a stepped plinth stood for both divine order and royal legitimacy. Winged figures in Sasanian glyptic are generally understood as personifications of victory or divine favor, ultimately descended from Hellenistic Nike types absorbed into Persian visual language. Item # 73281

Lot: 343 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals, Group of Four, 5th-6th C.

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A quartet of domed agate stamp seals in warm red to orange tones, each drilled through the body for suspension and each engraved in intaglio on its flattened face. One shows a winged bearded figure striding with a large amphora, another a youthful male head in profile, a third a warrior with shield and sword, and the fourth an abstract linear device. The lapidary cutting is crisp, worked with drill and wheel so that the impressions read cleanly in clay or wax. Miniature in scale, seals of this kind were worn on a cord and pressed to seal documents, jars, and bundles, functioning at once as personal signature, amulet, and ornament. Sealing was the connective tissue of Sasanian administration. From the great bureaucratic reforms of the fifth and sixth centuries onward, officials, priests, landowners, and private individuals alike carried engraved gems whose impressions authenticated correspondence, secured commodities, and certified legal acts; vast archives of clay bullae recovered at sites such as Qasr-i Abu Nasr preserve thousands of such impressions. Carnelian and other red chalcedonies were favored not only for their hardness and the clean release of the impression from the stone, but for the apotropaic value ascribed to them. The repertoire ranges from portrait busts and Zoroastrian divinities to animals, monograms, and purely abstract devices, and pieces like the winged figure here reflect the long conversation between Persian and late Hellenistic glyptic traditions. Item # 73282

Lot: 344 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals with Horses, Lions and Rosette, Group of 8

Western Asia, Persia, Sasanian Empire. A group of eight domed agate stamp seals, each in warm orange to pale honey stone, polished to a rounded dome and drilled through for suspension. The flat faces carry intaglio devices cut with drill and wheel: two standing horses, a winged creature seizing a small animal, a human-headed lion, a rosette encircled by animal heads, a second wheel of radiating heads, a seated male figure, and a schematic emblem. Such seals functioned as personal signatures, pressed into clay bullae to secure documents, storerooms, and goods; the animal repertoire likely carried apotropaic and status-bearing weight for their owners. Miniature in scale, they were worn on a cord or set into a ring bezel and read only in the impression. Sasanian seals are among the most abundant and most legible survivals of late antique Persia. From the third to the seventh century CE, bureaucrats, landholders, priests, and merchants each owned a personal stamp, and the sealings they left on clay have allowed scholars to reconstruct administrative networks across the empire. The domed, centrally drilled form seen here is the classic Sasanian type, distinct from the earlier cylinder seals of Mesopotamia and from the flat ringstones of Rome. The imagery follows a fixed vocabulary. Horses evoke cavalry prestige and royal hunt; lions signal power and protection; composite beasts and human-headed lions draw on older Near Eastern guardian creatures absorbed into Zoroastrian visual culture. Rosettes ringed with animal protomes belong to a well-attested Sasanian decorative scheme rather than to a single narrative. Chalcedony and its orange carnelian variety were preferred because the stone takes a crisp cut and releases cleanly from damp clay. Item # 73283

Lot: 345 - Sasanian Carnelian Intaglio Seals with Stags and Bearded Sphinx, Group of 3

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A trio of miniature carnelian sealstones, their translucent orange faces cut in intaglio with the crisp wheel work of the late Sasanian gem shops. The largest, an oval cabochon, carries a stag in full flight beneath a many-rayed star, its antlers sweeping back in exaggerated arcs. A smaller round cabochon repeats the running stag in more compressed form. The third, oval and slightly irregular, presents a bearded human head set upon a bird's body, a hybrid creature of the Persian visual repertoire. Each was made to be worn, ring-set or pierced for suspension, and pressed into clay bullae to seal documents and goods, functioning at once as personal signature, amulet, and ornament. Sasanian sealstones survive in enormous numbers, and their imagery is unusually legible: animals, monograms, busts, and hybrid creatures, each chosen from a shared visual vocabulary that identified the bearer and warded off harm. The stag belonged to the hunting iconography that Sasanian courts prized above all other subjects, while the star that accompanies it here signals divine favor, a solar or astral emblem that recurs across the empire's silverware and rock reliefs.\n\nThe human-headed bird is more elusive. It is often read as a form of the senmurv or of the winged human-headed guardian inherited from Achaemenid and Mesopotamian precedent, and in later Persian tradition such creatures shade into the harpy and the karkadann of romance illustration. Whichever thread applies, the motif carried protective weight and appears on seals belonging to private individuals rather than to state offices, whose devices were typically inscribed in Pahlavi. Item # 73284

Lot: 346 - Sasanian Agate Stamp Seals, Group of Seven with Nishans, Lion and Bust

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A group of seven small stamp seals cut from creamy white and faintly banded agate, most domed above a flat engraved face, one or two of flattened oval form. Each is drilled through for suspension, worn on a cord or a ring at the wearer's shoulder. Four faces carry heraldic devices of the type known as nishans, personal emblems of family or office. Another shows a striding lion encircled by a border inscription, a further seal a profile bust with elaborated coiffure, and the last a pair of interlocking C-shaped elements terminating in four animal heads. The engraving is intaglio, cut with wheel and drill so the impression reads in relief. Under the Sasanians the personal seal became an instrument of administration as much as of adornment. Documents, jars, storerooms, and letters were closed with clay sealings, and the impression served as a signature: a bureaucrat, priest, or landowner was legally present wherever his device appeared. Excavated archives such as those from Qasr-i Abu Nasr have yielded thousands of such sealings, letting scholars connect motif, inscription, and office.\n\nThe abstract compositions here belong to the nishan tradition, monogram-like emblems built from crescents, volutes, and ribboned forms that identified a family or an official post rather than depicting anything. The lion, by contrast, is one of the standard royal and apotropaic motifs of the period, and border inscriptions in Middle Persian typically give an owner's name or a formula of good fortune, trust, or justice. The reading of the inscription on the lion seal has not been verified here and would repay specialist review. Item # 73285

Lot: 347 - Sasanian Stamp Seal Group of Four with Bust, Bull and Nishan Devices

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A quartet of domed stamp seals, each pierced through the shoulder for suspension and cut with a single device on the flat face. One is worked in a copper-alloy metal and carries a stylized humped bull; a deep brown stone example shows a profile bust ringed by drilled pellets; a small gray stone seal bears a second profile head; the largest, a mottled gray-tan stone flecked with red, is engraved with a crest-like emblem of paired volutes above a heart-shaped motif. Such seals authenticated documents, sealed goods, and signaled personal or administrative identity, worn on a cord or at the wrist. The devices belong to the standardized Sasanian repertoire of busts, beasts, and heraldic signs. Sasanian glyptic is among the most abundant surviving arts of late antique Persia. Seals were not merely decorative: under the Sasanian bureaucracy they functioned as legal signatures, impressed into clay bullae that closed letters, jars, and storerooms, and their imagery was drawn from a shared visual grammar. Profile busts, often wearing a fillet or diadem, likely represented the owner. The humped zebu bull and other animals carried astral and auspicious associations, while abstract heraldic devices, the nishan, served as personal or family badges much as a European crest later would. The domed ellipsoid form with a transverse perforation is characteristic of the 4th to 6th centuries, replacing the earlier ring-mounted intaglios of the Parthian period. Item # 73286

Lot: 348 - Sasanian Stamp Seals with Lion, Scorpion and Nishan Devices, Group of 4

Western Asia, Sasanian Empire. A quartet of domed stamp seals, each drilled laterally for suspension and cut with a device on the flattened face. A brown agate carries a large reclining lion; a second brown stone gathers a scorpion, crescent and star, crab, fish and animal head into a crowded astral field; a pale example shows a stylized predator seizing a horned quadruped; a deep green stone bears a nishan, the abstract heraldic badge that functioned as a personal or family emblem. Intaglio-cut with drill and wheel, such seals were worn at the wrist or neck and pressed into clay bullae to close and authenticate documents, sacks and storeroom doors across the Sasanian bureaucracy. Offered with modern impressions. Sasanian seals survive in extraordinary numbers because sealing was the connective tissue of the empire's administration: clay bullae attached to letters, bales and jars preserved the impressions of officials, priests, landowners and private citizens alike. Motifs were drawn from a shared repertoire in which animals, celestial signs and abstract nishan badges each carried apotropaic as well as identifying weight. The lion signalled royal and solar power; the scorpion, crescent and star belong to a protective astral vocabulary with deep Mesopotamian roots, later absorbed into Zoroastrian visual culture. The nishan, a monogram-like device of loops and bars, marked a family or office and has no clear parallel in Roman glyptic, making it among the most distinctively Persian of Sasanian seal designs. Item # 73287

Lot: 349 - Ancient Chalcedony Bowl, Near East, Banded Stone

Western Asiatic, Near East or Central Asia, ca. 3rd to 1st millennium BCE. Globular bowl hollowed from a single boulder of banded chalcedony, the walls drawn down from an everted rim rolling outward into a smooth collar. The stone shows a blue-grey ground with milky cloud formations and ochre inclusions, the natural banding running diagonally across the body. The exterior retains a waxy polish, with tool traces visible along the interior wall in raking light, evidence of the abrasive drilling and hand-lapping by which such vessels were produced. Stone vessels of this quality were luxury goods in the ancient Near East, requiring weeks of labor and reserved for elite or votive contexts. Item # 204244

Lot: 350 - Old Assyrian Cuneiform Tablet in Sealed Clay Envelope, Kanesh Type

Anatolia, Old Assyrian Trading Colony period. A rectangular clay envelope, or case, still sealed around the tablet it was made to protect, its four faces and edges crowded with closely packed cuneiform and roughly fourteen cylinder seal impressions rolled across the surface. Registers of ruled text alternate with friezes of seal-rolled figures, the witnesses to the transaction recorded within. Such cases were formed by wrapping a wet clay skin around a finished tablet, inscribing a duplicate of the text, and sealing it, so that any tampering would be evident; the contract could only be verified by breaking the case open. This one was never opened, its inner document unread and undisturbed. The script is Old Assyrian, the commercial hand of merchants working far from home. Kultepe, the ancient Kanesh, anchored a network of trading settlements founded in central Anatolia by merchants from Ashur in northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the second millennium BCE. Travelling immense distances and often living apart from their families, these traders moved vast quantities of tin and textiles south to north and took Anatolian copper and silver in return. They adopted much of local Anatolian life but carried with them the Mesopotamian apparatus of record: a simplified cuneiform, clay tablets and their envelopes, and cylinder seals. With these they tracked loans, partnerships, and disputes, and wrote home to Ashur. Thousands of such texts, shelved in household archives, were baked and preserved when fire destroyed the city around 1836 BCE. Together they form one of the richest commercial archives to survive from the ancient Near East, documenting credit, caravan logistics, marriage contracts, and litigation in unusual detail. Sealed cases that remain unopened are comparatively scarce, since most were broken in antiquity to settle the obligations they recorded. Item # 73288

Lot: 351 - Near Eastern Gilt Hair Rings, Group of 16, 1st Millennium BCE

Near East, Ancient Near Eastern cultures. A gathering of sixteen small penannular hair rings, each cast solid in a copper alloy and sheathed in applied sheet gold that still flashes along the outer curves. Six matching pairs and four singles make up the group, ranging from slim wire hoops to plump lenticular annuli with narrow slits for threading through a braid or lock. The gilding technique, thin precious foil burnished over a cheaper core, gave the appearance of solid gold at a fraction of the bullion, and such rings served as personal ornament and portable wealth alike. Blue-green cuprous patina blooms across many, throwing the surviving gold into contrast. Penannular rings of this kind circulated widely across the ancient Near East through the first millennium BCE, appearing in Levantine, Mesopotamian, and Persian contexts. Their function has long been debated: hair and lock rings, earrings, nose ornaments, and small-denomination bullion have all been proposed, and the categories were likely never exclusive. Before coinage spread through the region, standardized rings of precious metal did double duty as adornment and as weighed currency, an economy of "silver by weight" attested in cuneiform contracts. Gold-over-alloy examples like these sat at the affordable end of that spectrum, delivering the visual authority of gold on a base-metal armature. Item # 73289

Lot: 352 - Neo-Babylonian Duck Weight Stamp Seals with Star and Crescent, Pair

Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Neo-Babylonian. A pair of miniature stamp seals carved in the compact duck form long favored by Mesopotamian lapidaries, each bird resting its bill along its back and pierced below the head for suspension. One is worked in red jasper, its flat underside incised with a many-rayed star above linear fillers; the second, in dark grey hematite, carries a crescent paired with a rayed star and a hafted spear-like emblem. The devices are cut with quick drill-and-graver strokes, the modeling of the bodies smoothed to a soft polish. Such seals served as personal signatures, rolled or pressed into damp clay to authenticate contracts and seal storage jars, while the astral signs invoked the divine guarantors of oaths. The duck-shaped seal descends from the Mesopotamian duck weight, a standardized stone measure whose silhouette became a stock lapidary form and was later adapted to sealing. The symbols carved on both faces belong to the astral vocabulary of the first millennium BCE: the rayed star of Ishtar, planet Venus, and the crescent of Sin, the moon god whose cult at Ur and Harran was revived with imperial energy under Nabonidus, last king of Babylon. Marduk's spade and Nabu's stylus often join them, and the spear-like device on the hematite seal may belong to this same repertoire of divine emblems. Reduced to abstract signs, they let a seal owner place a transaction under divine witness without the crowded figural scenes of earlier cylinder glyptic. Item # 73290

Lot: 353 - Sumerian Clay Foundation Cones with Cuneiform Dedications, Group of 3

Near East, Mesopotamia, Sumerian. A trio of buff clay foundation cones, each a tapering shaft rising to a flat, mushroomed nail head. Columns of cuneiform run in vertical registers around the upper body, impressed with a reed stylus into the damp clay before firing, the text most likely a dedication naming a temple and its royal builder. Cones of this type were driven into the mud-brick walls of sanctuaries so that the inscribed head stood proud of the surface, sealing the building's dedication into its fabric. Earthy ancient deposits still cling in the wedges of the script. Three examples, graduated in scale, sharing form and manufacture. Foundation cones, sometimes called clay nails or temple nails, are among the most characteristic instruments of Mesopotamian royal display. From the later third millennium BCE onward, rulers commemorated the construction or restoration of temples by embedding inscribed cones into the walls at regular intervals, a practice attested at Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, and Larsa. The formula is broadly standard: the deity honored, the king's name and titles, the building undertaken, and often a curse on anyone who would efface the record. The intended readership was partly divine and partly future, a message aimed at whichever later monarch would one day dig into the ruin to rebuild it. The cone form solved a practical problem elegantly. A shaft buried in mud brick anchored the object, while the broad head remained visible and legible, effectively studding a sacred wall with its own charter of legitimacy. Item # 73291

Lot: 354 - Iberian Standing Votive Figure, 8th-7th C. BCE

Iberian Peninsula, Iberian culture. A small solid-cast figure pared down to planes and angles, its columnar body rising from joined feet with toes lightly indicated. The domed head projects over a narrow neck, the face reduced to arched brows, a blunt nose and a slotted mouth, while an incised V at the chest suggests a garment neckline. Arms are absorbed into the flanks, the whole read as silhouette rather than anatomy. Deep green surface patination is broken by scattered red cuprite. Miniature in scale, such figures were likely votive offerings, deposited at sanctuaries and shrines as proxies for the dedicant. Mounted on a small pin for display. Votive bronzes of this kind belong to the long tradition of small-scale metal offerings deposited across the Iberian Peninsula, best known from later sanctuary hoards such as Despenaperros and Collado de los Jardines, where thousands of figures were left by worshippers. The earlier examples, austere and near-geometric, owe their schematic vocabulary to Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age Atlantic and Mediterranean contact rather than to the naturalism that Greek and Phoenician models would later introduce. Cast solid by the lost-wax method and finished with incised detail, they were made to be seen frontally, the figure standing in for the person who gave it. The lot retains its old plexiglas vitrine with velvet-covered pedestal base, and its Mathias Komor gallery label, a New York dealership of note in the mid-20th-century antiquities market. Item # 73292

Lot: 355 - Ordos Miniature Galloping Horse Figure with Suspension Hole

Eurasia, Central Asian Steppes, Ordos culture. A miniature cast horse caught mid-stride, its long neck thrust forward and legs extended in a full gallop. The modeling is spare but assured: a wedge-shaped muzzle, pricked ears laid back, incised segmentation along the crest of the mane, and a short curled tail. A transverse suspension hole pierces the body behind the forelegs, indicating the piece was worn or hung, likely as an amulet or garment ornament rather than a freestanding sculpture. The surface carries a deep blue-green cuprous patina. Running horses are uncommon in the repertoire of steppe animal art, which more often favors predators, coiled beasts, and standing herd animals. Mounted on a custom pedestal. The label "Ordos" derives from the Ordos Loop, the great northern bend of the Yellow River, where nomadic pastoralists pastured their herds along the agricultural frontier of Zhou and Han China. The term has since expanded to cover a broad idiom of small cast animal ornaments produced across the Eurasian steppe belt, from the Black Sea to Mongolia, and shared by peoples the Chinese sources call the Xiongnu and their neighbors. These objects, plaques, belt fittings, harness mounts, and pendants, encode a mobile aesthetic: portable, durable, and legible at a glance, with the animal reduced to its most recognizable silhouette. The horse held particular status in a society whose wealth, warfare, and mobility all rested on it, and a galloping horse worn on the person was as much a statement of identity as of ornament. Item # 73293

Lot: 356 - Nabatean Camel and Rider Miniature Figure

Near East, Jordan, Nabatean. A dromedary strides forward on four stout legs, its long neck arched and small head tipped up, while a rider sits astride the high hump. The group is solid cast as one piece, the modeling summary but assured: a rope leader line loops the animal's neck, and the rider wears an ankle-length garment with a banded head covering, arms held forward as if to the reins. Surface encrustation of mottled blue-green and earthen brown veils the details. Miniature in scale, such caravan images were likely votive or amuletic, invoking the beast on which desert trade and survival depended. A scarce type. Mounted on an old block base. The camel is the defining animal of the North Arabian world, and its domestication transformed the incense roads that carried frankincense and myrrh north from Arabia Felix toward the Mediterranean. The Nabateans built their wealth on precisely that traffic, controlling the desert routes and the water that made them passable, and camel imagery recurs across their rock reliefs, coinage, and small bronzes. Rider-and-mount figures of this kind, cast in miniature, are generally understood as votive offerings or personal talismans rather than toys, deposited or carried to secure safe passage and the prosperity of a caravan. Item # 73294

Lot: 357 - Ordos Miniature Bronze Age Ibex Plaque, Eurasian Steppe Animal Style

Eurasia, Ordos region, steppe nomadic cultures. A curl-horned ibex strides across this miniature cast plaque, its ribbed horn sweeping back in a full arc to meet the shoulder and frame an openwork void. The body is modeled with taut, muscular economy: a raised haunch, a lifted foreleg, and a rocky groundline pierced by cutouts that lighten the casting and give the silhouette its snap. A ring-and-dot eye anchors the head. Cast in a copper alloy with deep brown surfaces, the plaque belongs to the harness and garment fittings of the Eurasian steppe, where such animal ornaments were sewn or riveted to belts, straps, and tack. The ibex, prized for its horns and its high-country agility, was among the most persistent motifs in nomadic metalwork. Mounted on a custom display stand. The "Ordos style" takes its name from the great bend of the Yellow River, the grasslands along the northern frontier of agrarian China occupied by mobile pastoralists from roughly the late first millennium BCE. Their bronzes, small, portable, and made to be worn or fixed to gear, form the eastern wing of a vocabulary of animal imagery that stretches west across the steppe belt through Scythian and Sarmatian territory. Ibex, argali, stags, felines, and combat groups recur in openwork plaques of this type, cast in matched pairs for belt fittings and often recovered from burials alongside horse equipment and weapons. The style's diffusion is one of the clearest material traces of contact between the settled dynasties of China and the nomadic confederations, the Xiongnu foremost among them, that pressed on their borders. Item # 73295

Lot: 358 - Ordos Feline Appliques, Pair, Miniature Steppe Animal-Style Plaques, 5th-1st C. BCE

Eurasia, Persia to Central Asian Steppes, Ordos culture. A pair of miniature cast appliques, each a crouching feline caught mid-stride, muscled haunches drawn tight and jaws parted. Both are openwork plaques, the voids between limbs and belly deliberately pierced so the silhouette reads at a glance. One carries a large integral suspension loop rising from the spine; the other spreads long raking claws and a striated, curling tail. Punched circles and hatched ridges pick out pelt and paw. Such small fittings were sewn or riveted to belts, harness straps, and garments by mounted nomads, where the predator motif functioned as both ornament and emblem of power. Mounted together on a custom metal and plexiglas display base. "Ordos" takes its name from the loop of the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia, the grazing lands held by nomadic peoples along the northern frontier of agricultural China. The label has since widened into a stylistic term for the animal-style metalwork produced across the Eurasian steppe corridor, from Persia through Central Asia to the borders of the Han world, where tigers, wolves, raptors, and stags dominate a portable repertoire of belt plaques, harness ornaments, and pendants.\n\nThe idiom is one of compression: bodies twisted or coiled into the shape of the fitting itself, anatomy reduced to a rhythm of curves, surfaces enlivened with punched and hatched detail. Because these were the possessions of horse-riding peoples who built no cities, the metalwork carries much of what survives of their visual language. Item # 73296

Lot: 359 - Ordos Animal Style Appliques, Horse and Stags, Group of Three

Eurasia, Persia to Central Asian Steppes, Ordos culture. A trio of small cast openwork appliques rendered in the animal style of the Eurasian steppe: a standing horse with a beaded mane, a galloping or "flying" stag whose antlers unfurl into a row of pierced volutes, and a running deer with a scrolled rack laid along its back. Each is pierced and cast with integral loops or shanks on the reverse for attachment, so they likely once ornamented belts, harness straps, or garments. The pared-down silhouettes, tucked legs, and rhythmic voids give the animals a coiled, forward-driven energy typical of nomadic metalwork. Sold together on a custom metal and plexiglas display stand. Note the miniature scale of the individual plaques. The "Ordos" designation derives from the grasslands within the great bend of the Yellow River, the frontier zone between agricultural China and the mobile pastoralists of the northern steppe. Their portable metalwork, worn on the body and on horse tack rather than displayed in architecture, carried an animal vocabulary of stags, horses, ibex, and predators locked in combat that ran continuously from Scythian Ukraine across Siberia to Mongolia and northern China. The antlered stag with backswept, scrolling tines is the signature motif of this shared visual language and appears in gold, bronze, and felt across the entire belt of steppe cultures. Its recurrence in burials suggests more than decoration: the deer likely functioned as a clan or status emblem, and possibly as a psychopomp figure, though interpretations remain debated. Item # 73297

Lot: 360 - Hellenistic Terracotta Head of a Goddess with Rayed Diadem, Magna Graecia

Southern Europe, Magna Graecia, Hellenistic period. A large mold-made terracotta head of a woman, her face broad and serene beneath a rayed diadem whose crenellated points crown a mass of deeply striated waves. The hair parts at the center, sweeps back in ridged locks, and falls in long tresses that curl into volutes at the shoulders, framing lidded eyes, arched brows, and full lips drawn into the faintest smile. Disc earrings sit at the lobes and a beaded necklace crosses the throat. The reverse is left open and hollow, the pressed clay bearing the maker's finger drag, indicating a votive plaque or antefix intended for frontal display, likely dedicated at a sanctuary and perhaps representing a goddess rather than a mortal. The Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily produced votive terracottas in staggering quantity, pressed from reusable molds so that a single archetype could furnish a sanctuary with hundreds of dedications. Heads of this scale, hollow-backed and finished only on the face, were pinned or set upright in votive deposits at shrines of the great female divinities, Demeter and Persephone above all, whose cults dominated Magna Graecian religious life at Locri, Taranto, and Medma.\n\nThe rayed or crenellated diadem broadens the reading. A turreted crown identifies Tyche or a city goddess; a radiate one suggests solar or celestial associations. Combined with the softened Hellenistic modeling, the melting gaze and parted lips descended from Praxitelean sculpture, the type sits comfortably in the later fourth to third centuries BCE, when large-scale coroplastic work in the region reached its technical height. Item # 73298

Lot: 361 - Magna Graecia Terracotta Bust of a Goddess, Likely Demeter or Persephone, 4th C. BCE

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Greek. A mold-made bust of a young woman in buff terracotta, her head inclined and her mouth curved in the last echo of the Archaic smile. The wavy hair parts centrally and sweeps back in crisp ridged locks beneath a low diadem, framing almond eyes, a straight relief nose, and a firm chin. Shoulders and upper chest are broadly modeled, the back left open and hollow in the manner of a votive protome. Traces of white slip and pigment survive across the surface, remnants of the polychromy that once enlivened the face. Likely an offering to a chthonic goddess, perhaps Demeter or her daughter Persephone, dedicated in a sanctuary deposit. Mounted on a custom hardwood block base. Votive busts of this kind, half-figures broken off at the chest and hollow behind, were produced in enormous quantities by the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. Worshippers bought them cheaply from sanctuary workshops and left them in favissae, the pits where surplus offerings were reverently buried once shrine shelves overflowed, which is why so many survive in fragmentary but recognizable condition. The cult of Demeter and Kore was among the most tenacious in Magna Graecia, its sanctuaries at Locri Epizephyrii, Medma, and Morgantina yielding thousands of such terracottas. The deities are frequently indistinguishable in these mass-produced types: mother and daughter share the same serene face, the same veiled or diademed coiffure, and only attributes (a torch, a piglet, a sheaf of grain) separate them when they survive at all. Here no attribute remains, so the identification stays open between the two. Item # 73299

Lot: 362 - Greek Terracotta Protome Maskette of a Veiled Goddess, 5th C. BCE

Magna Graecia, Western Greek. A goddess looks out from a mold-made terracotta protome, her head veiled and her hair drawn in fine wavy strands beneath the cloth. The face is worked in late Archaic idiom: long narrow eyes under arched brows, a slender nose, and closed lips lifted at the corners into the characteristic smile. The back is left open and hollow, and a suspension hole pierces the top so the maskette could be hung. Protomai of this type were dedicated in sanctuaries as votives to chthonic and fertility goddesses, and were also deposited in tombs. Presented on a custom tapered hardwood display base. Female protomai, half-figures or masks pressed from a single mold and left hollow behind, were among the most widely produced votives of the Greek west. Workshops in Sicily and South Italy turned them out in quantity from the late 6th century onward, and excavations at sanctuaries of Demeter and Persephone at sites such as Gela, Selinunte, Locri, and Medma have yielded them in their thousands. Because the surviving image is only a face and veil, without attribute or inscription, the specific goddess is rarely identifiable; the type is generically divine, standing in for the recipient of the offering rather than portraying her. The Archaic smile persists in western Greek coroplastic work well into the 5th century, a generation after Attic sculpture had abandoned it, which makes stylistic dating of these pieces broader than one might expect. Item # 73300

Lot: 363 - Etrusco-Italic Terracotta Votive Head of a Youth, 4th-3rd C. BCE

Italy, Etruscan or Etrusco-Italic. A hollow mold-made terracotta votive head (testa votiva) of a youth, the face pressed from a single-piece mold and the cranium left open at the back. The features follow a softly idealized late-Classical type: oval face, high forehead, straight profile nose, almond eyes beneath smoothly arched brows, full cheeks, and a small composed mouth still carrying the faint upturn inherited from the archaic smile. Rows of short, comma-like curls edge the forehead beneath a fillet, and the neck terminates in a flat break for insertion or display. Such heads were deposited by the hundreds in sanctuary favissae as anatomical or personal ex-votos, offered for healing or in fulfillment of a vow. Traces of the original reddish slip survive across the surface. The Italic votive-head tradition flourished from the early 4th through the late 2nd century BCE, concentrated in Etruria, Latium, and Campania, where sanctuaries accumulated vast deposits of terracotta offerings. Coroplasts worked from reusable molds, producing near-identical heads in quantity and finishing each by hand, an early industrial logic that made devotion affordable to worshippers of modest means. Heads and half-heads dominate these deposits alongside limbs, eyes, and internal organs, suggesting that the head could stand for the whole person as readily as a foot stood for a foot. When the deposits were periodically cleared, the offerings were buried in consecrated pits (favissae) rather than discarded, which is why so many survive with the ground-deposit encrustation seen here. Item # 73301

Lot: 364 - Hellenistic Greek Silver Juglet with Fluted Body, Late 4th C. BCE

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Hellenistic Greek. A small silver juglet of ovoid body on a spreading disc foot, its tall loop handle rising well above the flaring mouth and secured at either end by leaf-form attachment lugs. The body carries two registers of raised ray, or petal, elements, separated by a finely engraved band of hatched lozenges and dotted triangles, with a large chased floral rosette on the underside of the base. Raised and worked from sheet, the piece belongs to the repertoire of Hellenistic toreutic tableware, where luxury plate translated potters' shapes into precious metal. Its miniature scale suits the pouring of perfumed oil or unmixed wine, perhaps at table or in a domestic offering. Greek silver plate of the late Classical and early Hellenistic centuries survives in a fraction of its original quantity, since precious-metal vessels were routinely melted for coin or bullion; what remains comes largely from tombs and from hoards buried in periods of crisis. The Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily, collectively Magna Graecia, were among the wealthiest patrons of the toreutic workshops, and their burials have yielded the finest small pitchers, phialai, and cups of this class.\n\nThe ray-and-petal fluting seen here derives from the gadrooned metal shapes of the Achaemenid east, absorbed into Greek workshop vocabulary after Alexander's campaigns and then echoed in turn by mould-made ceramic relief wares. The rosette worked into the underside of the foot was meant to be read when the vessel was lifted and drained, a courtesy of design typical of high-end plate. Item # 73302

Lot: 365 - Achaemenid Fluted Silver Beaker with Flared Rim

Near East, Persia, Achaemenid Empire. A tapered cylindrical beaker raised in sheet silver, its body worked in close vertical fluting that rises from a beaded groundline to a register of arcaded lobes below the shoulder. Delicate chased zigzag and dotted bands frame the fluting at rim and foot, and the wall opens into a broad, everted lip. The underside carries a stylized floral rosette, a motif common to Achaemenid court metalwork. Vessels of this profile served as drinking cups at elite tables and appear among the tribute and banquet plate of the empire, where fluted silver signalled rank as clearly as its contents did. The surface retains a dark toning that gathers in the recesses of the chased ornament. Fluted and lobed silver beakers of this type belong to a metalworking koine that spread from the Achaemenid heartland through Anatolia, the Levant, and the Greek world after the Persian Wars. Athenian and South Italian potters imitated the shape and its vertical fluting in clay and in silvered ware, which is why such vessels are sometimes catalogued under Magna Graecia; the technique of raising a single sheet, chasing the flutes from within, and finishing the borders with a rocked graver is nonetheless characteristically Persian.\n\nThe rosette on the underside is the single most persistent ornament of Achaemenid luxury production, repeated on Persepolis reliefs, seals, and gold appliques, and read there as an emblem of royal favor. Its placement beneath the foot, visible only when the cup was drained and inverted, suits the ceremonial drinking of the Persian court, where the act of emptying the vessel was itself part of the display. Item # 73303

Lot: 366 - Greek Hellenistic Silver Bowl with Flared Rim, Magna Graecia, 4th-3rd C. BCE

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Greek, Late Classical to Hellenistic period. A thick-walled silver bowl raised to a deep, rounded body that swells from a curved base and opens into a cleanly everted rim lip. The surface is unornamented, its interest carried by weight, profile, and the soft grey and black tones of aged silver. Hammered from sheet and finished by burnishing, the vessel belongs to the plain-ware tradition of Greek table silver, likely serving as a drinking or serving bowl at the banquet, where undecorated forms of good metal signaled wealth without display. Its geometry is deliberately spare: a single continuous curve, broken only by the flare of the lip. Silver plate of this kind was measured by mass as much as by shape, and often passed as portable treasure. Magna Graecia, the constellation of Greek colonies across southern Italy and Sicily, produced some of the most accomplished metalwork of the Late Classical and Hellenistic world. Tarentum in particular was famous for silversmiths whose output ranged from figured phialai and relief medallion bowls to plain hollow-ware of exactly this type. Ancient inventories from Greek sanctuaries record silver vessels by weight rather than by decoration, a practice that helps explain the survival of undecorated forms: they were bullion in useful shape, held for the banquet and liquidated when required. Hoards buried during the upheavals of the Second Punic War have preserved comparable plain bowls in the region, often alongside coinage. Item # 73304

Lot: 367 - Greek Bronze Oinochoe, Gorgon Handle Roundel

Greece, Classical period. A bronze wine jug whose swelling body rises from a narrow footed base to sloping shoulders, a short neck, and a broad flaring lip finished with a reeded edge. The high strap handle arcs from rim to shoulder, where it ends in a cast roundel bearing a gorgoneion: a frontal face framed by writhing snaky locks, its features softened by centuries of burial. The Medusa mask was apotropaic, a guard against ill fortune and the evil eye, and here it watched over both vessel and vintage. Millennia underground have clothed the metal in a granular malachite-green crust, mottled with earthen ochre. Such a jug served at the symposion, drawing diluted wine from the krater to fill the cups of guests, an implement of hospitality in metal rather than clay. Bronze oinochoai were used from the early Geometric period onward to transfer wine from the krater, where it was diluted with water, and the form continued through the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Made of bronze rather than ceramic, such jugs likely belonged to wealthy households. Comparable examples are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 1981.62) and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (acc. no. 1373). This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204257

Lot: 368 - Silen Maskette Counterbalance with Ivy and Grape Diadem, 2nd C. BCE

Magna Graecia, Greek, Hellenistic period. A bearded silen gazes out with unexpected composure, his face framed by a cascade of corkscrew ringlets and lobed side locks worked to knife-edge crispness. Solid-cast in a copper alloy and finished in the cold, the maskette wears a diadem of clustered grapes and ivy leaves beneath a meander-banded collar, from which rises a heavy integral suspension loop. The reverse is left open and irregular, the profile of a piece meant to hang and be read frontally. Such heads served as counterbalances on steelyard scales, weight and ornament at once, and the Dionysiac subject suited a device used in the wine trade. The surface carries a deep blue-green cuprous patina. Silens, the elder and wiser cousins of the satyrs, attended Dionysos as tutors and companions. Where the young satyr is coarse and priapic, the silen of Hellenistic art is often ennobled: full-bearded, heavy-browed, and touched with the philosophical melancholy that Plato's Alcibiades famously compared to Socrates. The vine and ivy crown here declares the allegiance plainly.\n\nSteelyard counterweights of this kind hung from the long arm of an unequal-arm balance, sliding along a graduated beam to weigh goods in bulk. Bust and mask forms proliferated across the Greek and Roman Mediterranean, and the choice of subject was rarely idle: a Dionysiac head on a merchant's scale flattered the commodity most often being measured.\n\nThe piece descends from a private American collection, having passed through Sotheby's New York in June 1999, and was earlier published by the Freiburg dealer Gunter Puhze in his "Kunst der Antike" catalogue 12. Item # 73305

Lot: 369 - Etruscan Impasto Ware Skyphos, ex-Sotheby's

Etruria, Central Italy, Etruscan. A broad, deep drinking bowl of burnished impasto, its flaring walls rising from a narrow disc foot to a thickened everted rim, flanked by a pair of upswept triple-ribbed handles that flick outward like horns. The buff-to-smoke-grey surface is worked in dense registers of incision: hatched triangles below the rim, a chain of applied conical bosses ringed with fine combing, zigzag friezes, long pendent rays, and rows of stamped concentric circlets divided by twisted rope moldings. Such Orientalizing-period vessels, hand-built from coarse iron-rich clay tempered with grit, served wine at the banquets and funerary feasts of the Etruscan elite, where the accumulation of ornament likely signaled status as much as taste. A commanding object of the Villanovan-to-Orientalizing transition. Impasto is the defining fabric of early Etruria: unrefined clay, rich in mica and grit, fired in a reducing atmosphere and burnished with a pebble or bone tool to a soft sheen. Because it could not carry painted decoration well, potters turned to the surface itself, incising, stamping, and applying relief bosses in the manner of contemporary sheet-bronze work. The stamped concentric circlets seen here echo compass-drawn ornament on Villanovan bronzes, and the ribbed handles imitate riveted metal straps, a translation of prestige metalwork into clay for tombs at Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Vulci, and Chiusi. The skyphos form, a deep two-handled cup, was absorbed into Etruria through Euboean and Corinthian trade during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, then reworked at a scale suited to communal drinking rather than individual use. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204260

Lot: 370 - Corinthian Oinochoe with Confronted Griffins, Felines and Ibexes, Ca. 625 BCE

Greece, Corinth, Orientalizing period. A buff-clay wine jug of squat, broad-shouldered form, its trefoil lip pinched into a pouring channel and a high strap handle arcing above the rim. Deep brown slip with mottled red-brown highlights carries a wide figural register: winged griffins confronted across a bird, flanked by felines, a pair of ibexes, a large bird and a further feline, the ground crowded with incised rosettes and floral filler. A shoulder frieze repeats birds and felines, the bands divided by dotted and tongue-pattern borders, with rays rising from the foot. Incised interior detail throughout marks the mature black-figure technique Corinthian workshops pioneered. Such oinochoai served the pouring of wine at table and in the symposium, and travelled widely as export ware. Corinth dominated the Mediterranean fine-pottery trade through the seventh century BCE, and its Orientalizing animal style is the reason why: griffins, sphinxes, lions and grazing ibexes borrowed from Near Eastern and Egyptian textiles, ivories and metalwork, then reassembled into rhythmic friezes on a pale, almost luminous ground. The rosette filler that crowds the field here is the workshop's signature horror vacui, and the incising of manes, wings and haunches into the slip before firing is the black-figure technique that Athenian painters would later take over wholesale.\n\nWinged griffins in facing pairs carry apotropaic weight in this vocabulary, guardians drawn from Levantine iconography rather than from any Greek myth cycle, and their appearance on a pouring vessel places the drinker under their protection. Item # 73306

Lot: 371 - Apulian Red-Figure Lekanis with Ladies of Fashion, 4th C. BCE

Southern Italy, Apulia, Greek. A small lidded lekanis turned on a raised pedestal foot, its shallow body flanked by two loop handles and capped by a domed lid rising to a broad discoid knob. The lid carries two profile heads of the so-called Ladies of Fashion, each crowned with a radiate stephane and a beaded kekryphalos, traces of added white pigment still clinging to the jewelry and fillets. Fanning palmettes with curling tendrils fill the field between them; rays radiate across the knob, a wave band runs the lid rim, and vertical rays encircle the body above the foot. Such covered bowls held cosmetics, trinkets, or offerings, and were frequently deposited in South Italian graves. The isolated female head became the signature motif of late Apulian red-figure workshops in the second half of the 4th century BCE, when large narrative scenes gave way to a rapid, decorative repertoire of profile heads amid vegetal scrollwork. Scholars have long nicknamed these figures "Ladies of Fashion" for their elaborate coiffures and headgear: the radiate stephane, a spiked diadem, and the kekryphalos, a netted hair sack often rendered with rows of white dots to suggest pearls. Whether the heads represent Aphrodite, a nymph, or simply an idealized bride remains debated, though their persistent appearance on lekanides and pyxides, vessels tied to women and the wedding, favors a nuptial or funerary reading. Added white and yellow, painted over the fired black glaze rather than reserved from the clay, is characteristic of the Gnathian-influenced polychromy of the period. Item # 73307

Lot: 372 - Apulian Red Figure Lekanis with Lady of Fashion Heads

Southern Italy, Apulia, Greek. A lidded terracotta lekanis, its shallow bowl raised on a pedestal foot and fitted with two opposing loop handles. The domed lid carries two profile female heads in red-figure technique, each diademed and wearing a necklace and ear ornaments, hair gathered in a chignon, with added white and ocher enlivening the jewelry. Broad palmettes flank the heads, a stylized wave runs beneath, and vertical strokes band the bowl below the rim. The tall knob finial is centered by a floral rosette. Such covered dishes held cosmetics, trinkets, or small offerings, and the recurring "Lady of Fashion" head, perhaps Aphrodite or a bride, made them favored gifts and grave goods for women. Apulian workshops in the Greek colonies of southern Italy dominated red-figure production after Athenian output waned in the later 4th century BCE. Their smaller shapes, lekanides, pyxides, and squat lekythoi, were largely given over to the isolated female head in profile, a motif so ubiquitous that scholars long labeled it the "Lady of Fashion." The identification remains open: Aphrodite, a nymph, a bride, or simply an idealized beauty. Painted with white and yellow-ocher overpaint for diadems, necklaces, and pendant earrings, these heads bloom out of scrolling tendrils and palmettes, part portrait and part vegetal ornament. The type is closely associated with the funerary sphere of Taras and its hinterland, where such vessels accompanied women to the tomb. Item # 73308

Lot: 373 - Etruscan Bucchero Kantharos with Beaded Band

Italy, Etruria, Etruscan. A drinking cup of severe elegance, its shallow bowl raised on a low pedestal disc foot and flanked by twin strap handles that arc high above the rim. The body is bucchero, the reduction-fired Etruscan blackware whose burnished surface carries a soft metallic sheen, deliberately imitating the beaten silver and bronze plate of the aristocratic table. A notched, bead-like band encircles the lower wall, the sole ornament and a crisp foil to the otherwise unbroken black. Kantharoi of this form served wine at banquets and recur in tomb assemblages, where they accompanied the dead as emblems of feasting and status. Bucchero is the signature ceramic of Etruria, produced from the mid 7th century BCE onward at Cerveteri, Vulci, Chiusi and elsewhere. Its uniform black body results from firing in a reducing, oxygen-starved kiln, which converts iron in the clay to black ferrous compounds throughout the fabric rather than merely on the surface, then burnishing the leather-hard wall to a lustrous finish. The earliest and finest phase, bucchero sottile, produced thin, sharply potted vessels of exactly this kind; later bucchero pesante is heavier and more coarsely finished. The kantharos, a two-handled cup with handles rising above the rim, was so closely identified with Etruscan drinking that Greek workshops exported versions to Etruria and the shape later attached itself to Dionysos in Greek iconography. Compare similar examples in Ines Jucker, "Italy of the Etruscans," Jerusalem, 1991. Item # 73309

Lot: 374 - Mycenaean Painted Stirrup Jar, Argolid Greece

Aegean, Greece, Mycenaean. A broad-shouldered vessel of buff terracotta whose ingenious plumbing announces its purpose: a solid false neck capped by a disc, flanked by two arching strap handles, with the true spout set apart on the shoulder so that precious liquid could be poured in a controlled trickle and stoppered without loss. Encircling bands of lustrous brown slip sweep across the depressed globular body, gathering density toward the base, while the shoulder carries chevron-like curvilinear arcs with hatched edging. Stirrup jars of this form were the standard shipping container of the Mycenaean world, carrying perfumed oil and wine from Argolid workshops across the Aegean and into Egypt and the Levant. Their design is functional poetry, engineered for sealing, stacking, and the long haul of maritime trade. The stirrup jar (Greek pseudostomos amphoreus, "false-mouthed amphora") is the type fossil of Late Helladic commerce. Linear B tablets from Knossos and Pylos record the oil industry these vessels served, and inscribed coarse-ware examples found at Thebes and in Cyprus preserve place names and personal names in the same script, making the humble container one of the few Bronze Age objects that occasionally speaks. Argolid workshops around Mycenae and Berbati were the dominant exporters, and their products turn up from Sardinia to Ugarit, tracing the reach of a palace economy that vanished with the collapse of the twelfth century BCE. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204259

Lot: 375 - Etrusco-Corinthian Banded Amphoriskos, 7th-5th C. BCE Perfume Vessel

Italy, Etruria, Etrusco-Corinthian. A small piriform perfume flask, wheel-thrown in pale buff clay and turned on a disc foot, its long neck flaring into a broad flat-topped rim with a single strap handle rising to it. The painted scheme runs in horizontal registers: a radiating tongue collar at the shoulder, then alternating fine lines, solid bands of brown and mauve-red, and two rows of stacked dots encircling the belly, with concentric circles on the mouth. Such diminutive amphoriskoi held scented oil and unguent, precious enough to be dispensed drop by drop through the narrow neck, and were common grave goods as well as toilet vessels. The banded, ornament-only vocabulary is typical of Etruscan workshops adapting Corinthian models for everyday use. Etrusco-Corinthian pottery arose when Etruscan workshops, chiefly at Vulci, Caere, and Tarquinia, absorbed the flood of Corinthian imports arriving in Italy during the late 7th century BCE. Local potters copied the shapes (aryballos, alabastron, amphoriskos, olpe) and the orientalizing repertoire of animal friezes and rosettes, but the plainer "linear" or banded style seen here, purely geometric ornament in brown and added red, became the workhorse of the tradition and persisted into the 6th and 5th centuries. These containers travelled with their contents: perfumed oils were among the most widely traded luxury commodities of the archaic Mediterranean, and the vessel form is essentially standardized packaging, its narrow orifice designed to meter out a costly liquid. Item # 73310

Lot: 376 - Apulian Trefoil Oinochoe, Greek Magna Graecia

Southern Italy, Apulia, Greek (Magna Graecia). A wine jug, or oinochoe, with an ovoid body on a molded ring foot, drawn upward into a slender neck opening into a trefoil mouth. A single arching strap handle springs from the shoulder to the rim. The vessel is covered in black slip, with reserved decoration in the reddish tone of the clay: a palmette flanked by tendrils and volutes. Floral ornament of this type is associated with Apulian workshops of the Greek colonies of southern Italy. The oinochoe was used for pouring wine mixed at the krater into a drinking cup. Item # 204052

Lot: 377 - Hellenistic Greek White-Painted Olpe with Floral Vine, 5th-4th C. BCE

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Hellenistic Greek. A salmon-tan earthenware vessel of taut, swelling profile, its bulbous body rising from an integral splayed pedestal foot to a tall neck and widely flared rim. Added white slip carries the ornament: a leafy flowering vine undulates around the neck, stylized palmette-like plants spread across the shoulder, and a band of pendant triangles, read in the older record as grape clusters, encircles the belly above plain burnished walls. Wheel-thrown and thinly potted, the piece belongs to the white-on-red tradition of the Greek colonial workshops of southern Italy, where painters worked a limited slip palette into crisp vegetal friezes. Likely a table vessel for wine or oil, its elegant footed silhouette suited both domestic use and deposition as grave furniture. White-on-red (sometimes called Gnathia-adjacent) wares of Magna Graecia represent a colonial adaptation of mainland Greek vase painting: instead of the labor-intensive black-gloss and reserved-figure technique, potters covered the surface with a slip and applied ornament in added white, yellow, and occasionally rose, favoring vine scrolls, ivy, laurel, and palmettes over narrative figure scenes. The vocabulary is Dionysiac at root, and the grapevine that runs around this neck is the god's own emblem, appropriate to a vessel meant to hold or pour wine. Workshops at Taras, Canosa, and neighboring centers supplied both the Greek settlers and the Italic populations of Apulia and Campania, and their products travelled widely through the Mediterranean trade network. Item # 73311

Lot: 378 - Corinthian Aryballos with Painted Owl, 7th-6th C. BCE

Greece, Corinth, Middle Corinthian. A globular terracotta oil flask of classic Corinthian type, its broad flat disc mouth ringed with concentric circles and its small vertical loop handle set against the short neck. Orange-brown slip paint carries a large abstracted owl across the front, wings rendered as crosshatched panels, the body reduced to sweeping contour lines. The reverse bears a filled circular medallion of quartered geometric bars flanked by small x-shaped stars. Aryballoi held perfumed oil and unguents, carried by athletes to the palaestra and deposited by the thousand as votives and grave goods; their wide lips let the costly contents be dispensed a drop at a time. The loose, cursive draftsmanship places the piece among the mass-produced perfume containers Corinth exported across the Mediterranean. Corinth dominated the Archaic trade in scented oil, and the aryballos was its signature export: small, cheap, and shipped in enormous numbers to Etruria, Sicily, southern Italy, and the Levant, where examples turn up in sanctuaries and cemeteries far from the Isthmus. The quick, quasi-abstract animals of the later Corinthian workshops, birds and quadrupeds reduced to a few loaded strokes, reflect production at volume rather than a decline in skill.\n\nThe owl carried its own resonance in the Greek visual vocabulary as the bird of Athena and a byword for watchfulness, though on painted perfume flasks it usually belongs to the general animal-frieze repertoire rather than to a specific cult. Item # 73312

Lot: 379 - Roman Marble Over-Life-Size Portrait Head of an Imperator, 2nd-3rd C.

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean. A over-life-size head carved in white marble, the sitter presented as a commander: brow furrowed, gaze lifted and turned to his left, mouth set. Thick curls break in deep drilled channels across the crown and frame a short, densely worked beard, the chisel alternating crisp undercut locks with softly polished planes of cheek and throat. The features resemble the official likeness of Caracalla, though the fuller coiffure argues caution. A drilled cavity at the left rear of the cranium likely secured an attachment or a repair dowel. Such heads crowned draped or cuirassed statues set up in fora, basilicas, and imperial cult spaces, where the military register of the face carried the message of authority. Mounted on a custom dark green marble block base. Caracalla ruled as M. Aurelius Antoninus Pius, a name adopted as part of the Severan dynasty's campaign to present itself as the rightful heir to the second-century Antonines. His official portraiture nonetheless broke with that lineage: where Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius wore luxuriant hair and philosopher's beards, Caracalla was rendered with close-cropped curls, a stubble beard, and a scowling, torqued glance that reads as deliberate soldierly menace. The formula was copied and adapted across the provinces, and eastern Mediterranean workshops in particular produced variants that soften the imperial prototype while retaining its aggressive turn of the head, which is the register this piece occupies. Item # 73313

Lot: 380 - Roman Marble Life-Size Hand Holding a Scroll, 2nd C. CE

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean. A life-size right hand of finely carved white marble, its fingers curled in easy, naturalistic tension around a double scroll folded upon itself and finished with two projecting handles. The sculptor modeled knuckles, tendons and nail beds with confident economy, leaving the scroll's broad faces smooth to catch light against the softer flesh. Such a fragment once belonged to a standing or seated portrait statue, the volumen serving as the standard attribute of learning, magistracy and literary authority, held by philosophers, orators, senators and honored citizens alike. Scattered earthen encrustation and fine root tracery across the surface attest to long burial. The rolled volumen was Rome's most legible shorthand for cultivated authority. In Imperial portraiture a scroll in the hand marked the sitter as literate and civically responsible: a magistrate holding his commission, an orator with his published speeches, a philosopher with his text, or a deceased citizen commemorated on a funerary monument as a man of letters. The convention descends from Hellenistic portraits of poets and thinkers and persisted through the 2nd century CE across the Greek East, where marble workshops in Asia Minor and the Levant supplied honorific statuary for civic centers, gymnasia and tombs. The doubled, handled form seen here suggests a scroll bent back on itself with its umbilici (the rods around which papyrus was wound) protruding at either edge, a detail sculptors used to make the attribute readable from a distance. Item # 73314

Lot: 381 - Roman Marble Seated Satyr Torso with Wineskin, 1st-2nd C. CE

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean. A seated satyr carved in white marble, preserved from shoulders to knees, his athletic torso turning gently over crossed thighs. A mantle knotted at the left shoulder, its tassel hanging free, slips across the chest and gathers behind him in deep folds over the integral rocky support. The right forearm rests on a wineskin laid over the leg, the fingers closing around its nozzle, ready to pour. Tool work is confident: polished flesh set against the crisp, undercut drapery and the rasped surface of the rock. Such figures populated garden and fountain settings in Roman villas, where the wineskin often served as an actual spout for flowing water, casting the drunken companion of Dionysos as a perpetual pourer. Mounted on a custom base. Satyrs, the goat-eared, snub-nosed attendants of Dionysos, entered Roman decorative sculpture through Hellenistic prototypes and became a staple of villa gardens, peristyles, and nymphaea. The type with a wineskin, seated on rocks and tipping the skin forward, descends from Late Hellenistic models and was reproduced in workshops across the Eastern Mediterranean, where Aegean and Anatolian marbles were quarried within reach of the carvers. The subject carried an easy double meaning for its patrons: an emblem of Dionysiac abundance and license, and a practical fountain conceit in which sculpted wine became running water. The knotted mantle over one shoulder, leaving the body largely bare, is the standard costume of these figures, distinguishing them from the fully draped philosophers and muses that shared the same garden programs. Item # 73315

Lot: 382 - Published Roman Gold Onyx Cameo Earrings, Gorgoneion

Roman, Imperial period. A matched pair of gold pendant earrings, each built from two hammered sheet-gold medallions joined by an openwork loop and finished with a pointed wire hook. The upper roundel frames a banded onyx cameo of a gorgoneion, the mask of Medusa turned in slight three-quarter view, a single wing rising from her brow and her serpent locks knotted below the chin. The suspended oval below carries a second cameo, a woman's bust in profile, the pale layer of the stone carved in relief against a dark ground, draped in tunic and mantle, her hair parted, waved behind the ears and gathered into a low bun, a coiffure in the manner of Severan court portraiture. Worn together, the twin Medusas turned inward, the earrings offered apotropaic protection alongside conspicuous display. The gorgoneion travelled a long road before reaching a Roman woman's ear. Once the monstrous face on Athena's aegis, capable of petrifying any who met its gaze, it softened over the Hellenistic centuries into the "beautiful Medusa," a serene countenance whose serpents and wings survive as heraldic shorthand for her power. Roman jewelers, gem cutters, and armorers alike deployed it as a defensive emblem: what turns an enemy to stone protects the one who wears it. The lower cameos exploit the natural stratigraphy of banded onyx, the carver cutting the white upper layer down to a dark bed so the portrait appears to float. The hairstyle, center-parted with soft waves drawn back over the ears to a nape bun, follows the fashion set by the Severan imperial women, notably Julia Mamaea, and offers the firmest evidence for a date in the first half of the 3rd century CE. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204256

Lot: 383 - Roman Gold Ring with Garnet Intaglio of a Helmeted Male Head

Roman, Imperial period. A gold finger ring of hoop form, the tapered shank swelling to a raised oval bezel that cradles a cabochon garnet. The stone is engraved in intaglio with a male head in profile, the hair rendered in fine parallel strokes beneath what reads as a close-fitting helmet or fillet, the features compressed into a few decisive cuts. Reduced against the deep wine-red of the gem, the device would have printed cleanly in wax. Such rings served the double duty of Roman personal seals: an instrument of legal and commercial authority worn as a mark of standing on the hand. XRF analysis reports the alloy at roughly 83.5 percent gold, 14 percent silver and 2 percent copper. Garnet was among the most prized seal stones of the Roman east, valued for a saturated red that held light and released a crisp impression. Engravers worked it with a bow-driven drill and abrasive powder, cutting in reverse so that the wax, not the gem, carried the readable image. Sealing was a legal act as much as an ornamental one. Roman law required wills and contracts to be sealed by witnesses, and an individual's device functioned as a signature: unique, recognizable, and difficult to counterfeit. The habit of wearing that device in gold on the finger, rather than on a cord, became standard in the Imperial period, when the gold ring itself carried status implications tied to equestrian rank. Item # 73316

Lot: 384 - Islamic Gold Ring with Faceted Garnet, 9th-10th C.

Middle East, Early Islamic period. A single red flare of garnet crowns this gold finger ring, cut as a faceted lozenge and held in a tall tapering box bezel. The rounded shank swells smoothly toward the shoulders, which are notched where they meet the base of the setting, a small articulation that lifts the stone clear of the hand. The gold is worked by hand, its surface faintly undulating from hammering rather than casting, and the bezel walls rise in crisp planes that echo the geometry of the gem. Rings of this type served as personal adornment and as portable wealth, the transparent stone valued as much for its protective repute as for its color. Faceted rather than cabochon stones are a hallmark of jewelry from the early Islamic centuries, when lapidaries in the Abbasid and Fatimid orbits refined the cutting of hard transparent gems and jewelers built the tall, architecturally profiled bezels needed to display them. Al-Biruni, writing in the eleventh century, catalogued garnet among the stones prized in this milieu, noting the trade in red gems moving west from the mines of Central and South Asia. The stepped bezel and notched shoulders seen here anticipate forms that persist in Near Eastern goldwork for centuries afterward. Item # 73317

Lot: 385 - Greek Sheet Gold Diadem Appliques, Group of Ten Feather Forms

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Greek. A flight of ten sheet gold appliques, each hammered thin and worked into a fan of three overlapping feathers, their vanes rendered in fine chased herringbone strokes radiating from a raised central rib. Repousse from the reverse and trimmed to a scalloped tip, the plaques were originally stitched or pinned in sequence along a perishable band, forming a feathered diadem worn at festival, wedding, or funeral. Such gold foil ornaments were made for display rather than daily wear, their weightlessness a deliberate economy: maximum radiance from minimal metal. XRF analysis returns roughly 90.5 percent gold with silver, copper, tungsten, and trace iron, consistent with an unrefined ancient alloy. Presented on a custom stand that reconstructs the circlet. Gold funerary and votive wreaths are among the most characteristic luxury goods of the Greek world, and the workshops of Magna Graecia (Taras, Metapontum, and the colonies of Campania and Sicily) produced them in quantity from the Classical into the Hellenistic period. Most surviving examples imitate the leaves of plants sacred to particular deities: olive for Zeus and Athena, laurel for Apollo, myrtle for Aphrodite and the Eleusinian initiates, oak for Dodonaean Zeus. Feather forms are rarer and carry a different charge, suggesting the plumed helmet crests of the warrior, the wings of Nike, or the bird attributes of Apollo and Eros. The extreme thinness of the metal is diagnostic rather than accidental. Wreaths of this type were beaten to foil weight so that a small quantity of bullion could produce a broad, light-catching ornament, one intended to be seen by lamplight in procession or laid in the grave rather than to survive hard use. The alloy profile, with silver and copper in natural proportion and only trace refining, matches gold worked before the systematic parting techniques of later antiquity. Item # 73318

Lot: 386 - Scythian Sheet Gold Crouching Lion Applique with Carnelian Eyes

Central Asia, Scythian culture. A crouching lion worked in hammered sheet gold, compact enough to sit in the palm, its curly mane rendered in tight repousse curls and its tail sweeping up over the back. The front paws rear beneath the muzzle in the coiled posture typical of steppe animal style. Carnelian fills the eyes and a heart-shaped glass inset is bedded into the shoulder, with a second setting on the rear leg now vacant. Three small gold nails project from the reverse, showing the plaque was fixed to a garment, harness, or a wooden or leather fitting, most likely as prestige adornment for a mounted elite. Metal analysis reports a high-purity gold alloy with minor silver and iron. Scythian goldsmiths of the Pontic steppe and Central Asia built an entire visual language out of animals: predators coiled into circles, felines with tails curled to the spine, raptors and stags reduced to interlocking muscular volumes. The compressed, cornerless posture seen here suited the practical demands of nomadic life, where wealth traveled as ornament sewn to clothing, riveted to quivers, or mounted on horse trappings rather than housed in architecture.\n\nXRF analysis of this piece returned approximately 95.8% gold with roughly 2% silver and trace iron, nickel, germanium, and tungsten, consistent with a lightly refined natural alloy rather than modern refined bullion. The heart-shaped red inset is described in the legacy record as glass rather than garnet; both materials appear in steppe metalwork of the period, and cabochon garnet inlay in particular becomes a hallmark of later Sarmatian and early polychrome work. Item # 73319

Lot: 387 - Hellenistic Miniature Gold Perfume Vessel, Alexandria, 1st C. BCE - 2nd C. CE

Egypt, Alexandria, Hellenistic to Roman period. A miniature gold perfume flask, heavy walled and improbably complete, its cylindrical body swelling to a rounded lower profile and set on an integral low pedestal foot. Seven applied gold wire ribs run the length of the body, dividing it into crisp vertical facets, while the tall flaring neck terminates in a wide flat rim. Two small suspension loops at the shoulder allowed the vessel to hang from a cord or chain, carried on the person rather than set on a table. Such tiny containers held costly scented oils and resins, the perfumes for which Alexandria was famous throughout the Mediterranean world. XRF analysis records a gold content of roughly 85 percent, with silver, copper, and a trace of tungsten. Alexandria was the perfume capital of the ancient world, its workshops blending imported myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, and balsam into unguents that traveled the length of the Mediterranean and beyond. Pliny the Elder devotes a long passage of the Natural History to the trade, complaining at the sums Romans spent on Egyptian scent. Perfume was sold by the drachm, which is why the containers are so small and why the most precious of them were worked in gold rather than the alabaster, glass, or terracotta that served ordinary buyers. The construction here is characteristic of Hellenistic goldsmithing: sheet gold raised and soldered, then articulated with drawn wire applied to the surface to create structure and shadow where a heavier gold body would have been ruinously expensive. The same vocabulary of applied wire, plain sheet, and small soldered suspension loops appears across Hellenistic jewelry, and a vessel of this scale sits at the boundary between container and ornament: it was almost certainly worn. Item # 73320

Lot: 388 - Hellenistic Greek Gold Hoop Earrings with Antelope Head Termini, 3rd-2nd C. BCE

Magna Graecia, Greek, Hellenistic period. A matched pair of gold hoops, each drawn from tightly coiled wire that swells from a slender tail into a modeled animal head. The termini take the form of antelopes, with alert eyes, flaring nostrils, and long swept-back horns, the necks collared by a beaded and braided band above a ruff of tongue-shaped petals. Fine granulation and rope-twisted filigree sharpen the transition from wire to head. A hooked wire beneath the muzzle catches the tapered end, closing the hoop and securing it in the ear. Animal-head earrings of this type were prestige adornment among Hellenistic women, the beast's head serving as much as an apotropaic emblem as a display of a goldsmith's command of miniature sculpture. Animal-head hoop earrings are one of the signature forms of Hellenistic goldsmithing, produced from the late 4th century BCE onward across the Greek world and especially in the workshops of Magna Graecia, Asia Minor, and the northern Black Sea. The repertoire ran to lions, bulls, goats, antelopes, rams, dolphins, and Erotes, each head soldered or crimped onto a hollow tapering hoop and finished with collars of filigree and granulation copied in miniature from monumental ornament. The technique depended on the influx of Persian gold following the campaigns of Alexander, which put the metal within reach of a far broader class of patrons and drove a rapid elaboration of jewelry design. Item # 73321

Lot: 389 - Thracian Gold Ibex Amulet, Long Horned Goat Pendant, 4th C. BCE

Southeastern Europe, Thrace. A small gold ibex stands alert on four slender legs, head lifted and sweeping ridged horns arcing back over the shoulders. Cast solid and finished by hand, the figure carries perked ears, a pointed chin beard, and a body left with the soft irregular surface of the mould. A suspension hole pierced laterally through the torso allowed the animal to hang as a pendant. Horned caprids belong to the standard repertoire of Thracian goldwork, where wild game and hunted beasts served as emblems of vigor and elite prestige; worn on the body, such an amulet was likely apotropaic as much as ornamental. Metal analysis reports a high-karat alloy with silver and trace base metals, consistent with worked native gold. A miniature of considerable weight for its scale. Thrace, spanning modern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and European Turkey, produced some of antiquity's most inventive goldwork, funded by the region's own ore deposits and by tribute from the Greek colonies along its coasts. Fourth-century BCE Thracian aristocratic burials, best known from Panagyurishte, Rogozen, and the Vratsa tombs, yielded vessels, appliques, and personal ornaments in which animals dominate: stags, griffins, horses, felines, and horned caprids, rendered with a tension between naturalism absorbed from Greek workshops and the stylized vigor of the steppe. The XRF figures recorded for this piece (roughly 82.5 percent gold, 15 percent silver, trace copper and nickel) fall close to the composition of alluvial electrum-rich gold worked without refining, a signature common to Balkan and Anatolian ancient metalwork. The reported 2 percent tungsten reading is anomalous and worth re-testing. Item # 73322

Lot: 390 - Magna Graecia Granulated Gold Bow Fibula with Child's Earrings, 5th C. BCE

Southern Italy, Magna Graecia, Greek colonial. A hollow gold bow fibula whose swelling arc is carpeted in granulation, minute spheres massed into diamonds, triangles, and zigzag registers, with beaded collars flanking the bow and a long tapering box catchplate rendered in matching granulated bands. The solid gold pin springs from a coiled loop and seats in the sheath, a working closure disguised as ornament. Granulation of this density demanded fusion welding at temperatures a hair below the melting point of the metal, the signature virtuosity of South Italian Greek goldsmiths. Offered with a small pair of gold hoop earrings, each mounted with a domed shield boss within a beaded frame and scaled for a child. Such garment pins fastened the shoulder of a chiton and served equally as portable wealth and status display. The Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily, Taras, Metapontum, Croton, and their neighbors, grew rich on grain and trade, and their workshops absorbed granulation techniques from Etruscan and Eastern Mediterranean goldsmiths to produce some of the most technically ambitious jewelry of the Classical world. The leech- or navicella-form bow, thin-walled and hollow to conserve precious metal while maximizing visual bulk, is characteristic of the region.\n\nXRF analysis of the fibula reports 21.5K gold: 89.85% gold, 4.7% copper, 3.85% silver, and 1.5% tungsten. The silver and copper are consistent with ancient alluvial gold and deliberate alloying; the reported tungsten reading is unusual and warrants confirmation by a second analysis. Item # 73323

Lot: 391 - Etruscan Negau Type Helmet with Median Ridge and Flanged Rim

Italy, Etruria, Etrusco-Villanovan. A high domed war helmet raised from hammered sheet, its crown swept up to a median ridge running front to back and finished at the base with a horizontal carinated ridge above a projecting, vertically flanged rim. The rim is lightly incised, its edge softly rounded, and pierced at either side for the chin strap. Solder scars on the forward crown and at each side mark the seating of a crest holder, now lost. Much of the original gilding survives across the surface, broken by passages of greenish black patina. Helmets of this type served the infantry of Etruria and the eastern Alpine world, and a gilded example such as this would have declared the rank as loudly as it defended the head. The Negau type takes its name from Zenjak, near Negau (Negova) in present-day Slovenia, where a cache of more than two dozen such helmets was unearthed in 1812 and later published by Paul Reinecke ("Der Negauer Helmfund," Bericht der Roemisch-Germanischen Kommission 32, 1942, pp. 117-98). Several of the Zenjak helmets carry short inscriptions in a north Italic alphabet, one of which has been read as a Germanic personal name, making the hoard a touchstone in debates over early Germanic and Raetic epigraphy. The form itself belongs to the Etrusco-Villanovan armourer's repertoire and spread north across the Alps through trade and tribute, remaining in use long enough that examples were still being dedicated in sanctuaries generations after they were made. Gilding is uncommon on the type and suggests a helmet made for display and status as much as for the battle line. Item # 73324

Lot: 392 - Roman Bronze Legionary Helmet - Weisenau Type

Roman. A legionary helmet of the Weisenau family, classified in the Anglophone literature as Imperial Italic following Robinson's typology. The bowl is raised in a single piece to a hemisphere and surmounted at the apex by an integral crest knob, its baluster profile turned to a small finial, the mount for a transverse or fore-and-aft crest worn on parade. A neck guard extends at the rear in a flared shelf, with the edge rolled and reinforced, angled to deflect a downward blow away from the shoulders while allowing freedom of movement. Item # 203505

Lot: 393 - Luristan or Greek Spearhead with Socketed Haft, 5th C. BCE

Near East, Luristan, or Greek. A slender leaf-form spearhead cast in a copper alloy, its long double-edged blade carried on a pronounced central midrib that runs the full length of both faces, stiffening the weapon against the shock of the thrust. Below the blade the shaft narrows and swells again into a long conical socket, integrally cast and pierced by two opposed holes for the pins or thongs that fixed it to a wooden haft. The surface has weathered to a mottled blue-green patina flecked with cuprite red. Weapons of this proportion served both as functional armament and, deposited in graves, as markers of a warrior's rank across the Zagros highlands and the Aegean alike. The attribution sits between two traditions that produced closely comparable weapons. Luristan bronzeworking in the western Zagros of Persia is famous for its cast arms and horse gear, much of it recovered from cemetery deposits where spearheads, daggers, and finials accompanied the dead. Greek and broader Aegean smiths of the Archaic and Classical centuries produced socketed spearheads of similar leaf outline for the hoplite panoply, where the spear, not the sword, was the decisive weapon of the phalanx. The long integral socket and midrib seen here are shared technical solutions rather than diagnostic regional markers, which is precisely why the two attributions remain open. Lacquer was applied to the surface at some point in the object's modern history to stabilize the patina, a common conservation practice in mid-20th-century private collections. Item # 73325

Lot: 394 - Roman Hippocamp Appliques with Nude Nereids, Matched Pair, 2nd C. BCE - 2nd C. CE

Eastern Mediterranean, Roman. A mirrored pair of heavy cast reliefs, each a hippocamp plunging forward with forelegs extended, scaled hindquarters coiling into a spiraling fish tail. Astride each rides a nude Nereid, torso twisted to look back over her shoulder, one arm raised to hold a round object aloft, her long hair falling in a plaited fall behind her. The modeling is crisp: braided reins, combed manes, overlapping scales, and a foliate collar closing the curled tail. The reverses are flat and unfinished, indicating the plaques were made to be affixed, likely as appliques for furniture, a chariot fitting, or a vessel. Scattered blue-green and cuprite-red surface accretion overlays the metal. Mounted on old custom bases. The name hippocamp derives from the Greek hippokampos, joining hippos ("horse") with kampos ("sea monster"), and the creature served Greek and then Roman art as the standard mount of the marine thiasos. Drawing the chariot of Poseidon and Neptune, hippocamps carried Nereids, Tritons, and Aphrodite across the mosaic floors, sarcophagus fronts, and silver plate of the Mediterranean world. The fifty daughters of Nereus were the benign spirits of the sea, and their voyage over the waves became shorthand for safe passage, an image at home on bath mosaics, marriage gifts, and funerary monuments alike, where it read as the soul's crossing to the Isles of the Blessed. The mirrored composition, one creature facing left and one right, is characteristic of appliques designed to flank a central element, so the pair should be understood as a single decorative program rather than two independent figures. Item # 73326

Lot: 395 - Sabean Miniature Horse Figure with White Stone Inlays, 1st Millennium BCE

South Arabia, Yemen, Sabean culture. A pocket-sized equine cast in the round, head lowered and legs braced as if halted mid-stride. The miniature body carries teardrop and triangular recesses along flank, shoulder, and haunch, three still holding their white stone inlays, the remaining cavities empty. Modeling is spare but assured: pricked ears, muzzle blunt and rounded, barrel and croup summarized in smooth planes rather than anatomical detail, the whole animated by the dappling of the contrasting stone. A tang beneath the hooves indicates the figure was once fitted to a larger fixture, perhaps a votive stand or vessel attachment. Small bronze animals of this type circulated widely in the incense kingdoms of ancient South Arabia, likely as dedications. Now set on a custom hardwood display block. The Sabean kingdom, centered on Marib in what is now Yemen, grew rich on the overland frankincense and myrrh routes that fed the markets of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. Its temple economies absorbed a steady traffic of small bronze dedications, and animals, bulls, ibex, camels, and horses, were among the favored offerings, the beast standing in for the wealth or petition of the donor. Inlaid decoration in shell, limestone, or paste is a recurrent South Arabian taste, applied to alabaster funerary heads as inset eyes and here transposed to a spotted hide. The horse itself is a marker of prestige rather than agriculture: an animal of cavalry, royal display, and elite gift exchange along the caravan corridor. Item # 73327

Lot: 396 - Marlik Silver Beaker with Parade Horses and Rosettes

Near East, Northern Persia, Caspian region, Marlik culture. A waisted cylindrical beaker raised in sheet silver and worked in repousse, its walls framed above and below by guilloche borders and split by a central corded band into two registers. Six parade horses process around the vessel, three facing right above and three facing left below, each with arched neck lowered so the muzzle meets the chest, a heavy combed mane, three upright plumes along the back, feathered tufts at all four hocks, and a high-carried tail. Dappling marks the belly, star rosettes the withers and rump, and multi-petalled rosettes fill the field between the animals. A luxury drinking vessel, likely made for elite use and funerary deposit. The royal cemetery at Marlik Tepe, excavated in the Gohar Rud valley of Gilan in the 1960s, produced one of the richest assemblages of precious-metal vessels known from Iron Age northern Persia. Its goldsmiths and silversmiths favoured tall beakers worked in repousse with friezes of animals: humped bulls, winged monsters, ibex, and horses arranged in strict processional registers between guilloche bands, a compositional grammar shared with contemporary Elamite and Assyrian metalwork yet handled with a distinctive local taste for pattern. The horse carries particular weight in this region. The Caspian foothills were celebrated horse-breeding country, and harnessed, plumed animals of this type appear in Near Eastern art as tribute, as royal parade mounts, and as emblems of prestige. The plumes rising from the crest and the tufts at the hocks are markers of ceremonial caparison rather than anatomy, indicating animals dressed for display rather than the field. Item # 73328

Lot: 397 - Iron Age Steel and Bronze Spearhead, Central Asia

Asia, Iron Age culture. A leaf-shaped spearhead forged from carbon steel, with a broad blade tapering to a point and a central ridge. Below the blade is a cast leaded bronze collar, with a green mineral patina, which anchored the head to its haft and reinforced the join. The iron tang extends beyond the collar, with a heavily encrusted, corroded surface consistent with long burial. The combination of steel blade and bronze fitting reflects a metallurgical tradition suited to weapons of this type, with the form shaped by functional requirements of thrust and penetration. Item # 204059

Lot: 398 - Near Eastern Luristan Bronze Blade, Zagros Highlands

Ancient Near East, Western Persia, Luristan. A cast-bronze dagger with a tapering blade rising from a ribbed midsection to a flanged hilt and open pommel. The surface carries earthen mineral crust and green cupric patina consistent with burial. The form is associated with the bronze-working tradition of the Zagros highlands, where arms, horse tackle, and votive bronzes were produced. Weapons of this type are documented in quantity from cemeteries in the region. Item # 203812

Lot: 399 - Roman Bronze Patera - Stamped P. CIPI. POLYBI, Capuan Workshop

Roman, Imperial period. A cast bronze skillet, or trulleum, its shallow circular bowl rimmed by a crisply tooled band of vertical gadroons that catches the light like a fluted collar. The flat handle springs from the wall, tapers, then widens to a squared terminal pierced by a keyhole-shaped opening for suspension from hook or peg, and just below that piercing runs the workshop stamp P.CIPI.POLYBI. Publius Cipius Polybius directed the most productive of the Capuan bronze foundries in the mid-1st century CE, and vessels bearing his name traveled the length of the empire. Pans of this class served the table and the bath alike, used for warming, ladling, and the pouring of water over the hands of guests before dining. Surfaces carry a mottled cuprous patina of earthen brown and verdigris. The Cipii were a Campanian family of bronzeworkers, and Polybius, whose cognomen betrays servile or freedman origin in the Greek East, ran the best-documented of their shops. His stamped vessels have been recovered from Britain to the Black Sea and northward into Scandinavia, well beyond the imperial frontier, where they entered chieftains' graves as prestige imports. Capua's foundries standardized these forms and produced them at volume, an early instance of branded mass manufacture: the name in the stamp functioned as a guarantee of alloy and finish. An example excavated on Cyprus is a useful reminder that the trade ran east as well as north. The island lay on the sea lanes linking Italy to Syria and Egypt, and Roman households there furnished themselves from the same Campanian catalogue as those on the Rhine. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204229

Lot: 400 - Roman Bronze Double-Nozzle Oil Lamp, Crescentic Form

Roman. Roman, ca. 1st to 3rd century CE. Cast bronze oil lamp of crescentic plan, the concave reservoir sweeping between two forward-projecting nozzles, each terminating in a circular wick-pan. A filling hole sits in the rounded rear body, with the shoulders on either side rising into paired volute scrolls, echoed in smaller curls flanking each nozzle. The bronze carries a blue-green cuprite and malachite patina, with copper tones showing through on the raised edges where handling has burnished the surface. XRF test shows this is comprised on copper, tin and a small percentage of lead - consistent with ancient Roman bronzes of the period. Item # 204249

Lot: 401 - Daunian Painted Terracotta Double Spouted Askos

Southern Italy, Apulia, Daunian. A plump globular body rises into two flaring cylindrical spouts, bridged by a high arched strap handle that makes the vessel read almost like a creature caught mid-stride. The buff clay is painted in matte dark brown slip with obliquely swirling registers: running spirals and wave-scrolls, a stepped meander, chains of small rings, and a fringe of pendant loops hung with tadpole-like dots, while a stylized palmette or floral sprig punctuates the lower wall. Interiors of the spout rims retain a reddish wash. Such askoi held liquids, likely oil or wine, and appear frequently in Daunian burials of the Tavoliere, where the doubled mouth may have served ritual pouring as readily as domestic use. The tilted, restless banding is the signature of Daunian geometric taste. Daunia occupied the northern reaches of Apulia, around the Gargano promontory and the Tavoliere plain. Its workshops, active from roughly the 7th through the 4th centuries BCE, resisted the figural Hellenization that transformed neighboring Peucetia and Messapia, perfecting instead a geometric and later sub-geometric idiom painted in matte brown and reddish slips over pale clay. The persistence of abstract ornament (spirals, meanders, checkerboards, and stylized birds) marks Daunian pottery as one of the most conservative and recognizable indigenous traditions of pre-Roman Italy. Production centered on Canosa, Ordona, and above all Salapia and Arpi, whose potters exported these vessels across the Adriatic. Askoi and multi-spouted forms are especially characteristic of the Subgeometric Daunian II and III phases. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204255

Lot: 402 - Cypro-Geometric Bichrome Concentric Circle Jug, 1050-700 BCE

Eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, Cypro-Geometric period. A generous globular jug thrown in buff terracotta, rising on a low ring base to a short cylindrical neck and pinched pouring lip, with a bifurcated strap handle arching from shoulder to rim. Dark brown and red-brown paint bands the neck in close-set rings, while each side of the belly carries a bold concentric circle target framed by sweeping arcs; a rayed motif crowns the front roundel and two small circle clusters sit beneath the handle. The compass-drawn ornament is the signature of Cypriot potters of the early Iron Age, applied freehand over a pale slip. A vessel of this capacity would have served wine, oil, or water, likely in domestic use before deposition in a tomb. Cypriot potters of the Cypro-Geometric horizon developed a decorative vocabulary that owes almost nothing to the figural traditions of the Aegean mainland. Working with a multiple brush fixed to a pivot, they laid down sets of perfectly regular concentric circles, a technique inherited from Late Bronze Age Mycenaean practice on the island but pushed to a scale and boldness entirely their own. Where the potter used two pigments, black-brown and iron red, over a light ground, the resulting fabric is classified as Bichrome ware; a single dark pigment yields White Painted ware. The two run in parallel through the Cypro-Geometric I to III sequence. The trefoil-mouthed jug with strap handle is among the most enduring Cypriot shapes, produced continuously from the eleventh into the seventh century BCE and exported widely across the Levant and to Phoenician settlements in the west. Large examples such as this were serving vessels, and the bulk of surviving intact pieces come from chamber tombs, where liquid offerings accompanied the dead. Item # 73329

Lot: 403 - Ancient Near Eastern Basalt Bull Altar, Teshub

Ancient Near East, Eastern Anatolia. Basalt domestic altar in the form of a bull, whole and well preserved, with a pockmarked surface and the tip of the right back foot broken; taller than average for the type. The animal's body forms a slightly concave rectangular offering table supported on four low, angular legs, with a convex, undetailed belly; a square protuberance on one short side represents the head, barely outlined, its upper surface concave like a second small offering table. Despite the simple shape, the sculptor achieved a convincing bovid form. The style and use of basalt point to the lithic traditions of eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, where related altars have been found; such altars may relate to the god Teshub, whose sacred animal was the bull. bull. Teshub, the Hurrian storm god adopted into the Hittite state pantheon as the consort of the sun goddess of Arinna, was imagined riding or standing upon a pair of bulls, Seri and Hurri ("Day" and "Night"), who drew his chariot across the mountains. That association made the bull the most legible divine sign in the Anatolian and north Syrian highlands, appearing on rock reliefs, seals, and rhyta as well as on humble household furnishings like this one. The abstraction is deliberate rather than unskilled: a working altar had to sit stable and take weight, so the sculptor let a basin, four legs, and a single projecting muzzle carry the whole idea of the animal. The stone itself is significant. The volcanic terrain of the Anatolian plateau and the north Syrian basalt belt supplied a hard, dark, fine-vesicular rock that resists wear, and regional workshops developed a distinctive pecked-surface idiom in response to it, with forms kept broad and planar because the material punishes fine undercutting. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204258

Lot: 404 - 4th C. Roman African Red Slip Ware Amphora

North Africa, Tunisia, Roman Imperial period. globular terracotta jar rising to a tall flaring neck, with a pair of arching strap handles spanning shoulder to neck. The body swells to a full belly and rests on a ring foot, the surface dressed in the orange-red slip characteristic of African Red Slip Ware, here mottled by firing and burial. Produced in the workshops of Roman North Africa, this vessel is a type of tableware and storage ware associated with the ceramic industry that supplied the Mediterranean world. The form, a small twin-handled amphora, was suited to holding and pouring liquids such as oil or wine. Item # 203550

Lot: 405 - Ordos Miniature Gilt Duck Figure, Late 1st Millennium BCE

Eurasia, Central Asia Steppes, Ordos culture. A miniature waterfowl settled on its breast, cast in solid metal and finished with a warm gilt skin. The modeling is economical but exact: a rounded body, folded wings drawn back into a pointed tail, a broad flattened bill, and a head turned slightly aside and lifted, as though tracking something overhead. Chased and punched ornament carries the surface, imbricated scale-like plumage across the shoulder and breast, fine hatched barbing along the flight feathers, and stippled texture over the neck. Small zoomorphic castings of this kind, portable and richly finished, served the steppe elite as personal ornaments, harness or garment fittings, and prestige goods. Mounted on an old wooden display block. The Ordos bronzes take their name from the loop of the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia, the frontier zone where mobile pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe met the settled states of northern China during the Eastern Zhou and Han periods. Their signature is the animal: stags, horses, raptors, tigers locked in combat, and, more rarely, waterfowl. Birds carried a particular charge in steppe belief, moving between the earthly and celestial realms and often associated with seasonal migration and the passage of souls. Gilding on Ordos metalwork signals high status. Mercury amalgam gilding was mastered in the Chinese workshops of the Warring States and Han eras, and its appearance on steppe animal forms reflects the dense traffic in technique, taste, and tribute across that border, which frequently makes strict cultural assignment of individual pieces a matter of style rather than certainty. Item # 73330

Lot: 406 - Roman Medical and Cosmetic Implements, Group of 11 with Luristan Tweezers

Eastern Mediterranean to Near East, Roman and Luristan. A physician's working kit in miniature: ten slender cast implements, their shafts drawn to spatulate, olivary, and discoid terminals, with one twisted-stem probe and one baluster-turned handle among them. Most function as ligulae and spatula probes, used to mix, measure, and apply unguents and medicaments, to sound wounds, and to dress the ear and eye. All carry deep blue-green cupreous patina. Accompanying them is a pair of tweezers of Luristan type, the pivot surmounted by a horned animal head with pierced eyes, the arms tapering to fine gripping points. Eleven pieces in total, spanning several centuries and two traditions of small-scale metalwork. Roman medical practice relied on a compact and remarkably standardized toolkit, versions of which turn up from Britain to Syria and are catalogued in numbers from the House of the Surgeon at Pompeii. The spatula probe (spathomele) and the spoon probe (cyathiscomele) were the workhorses: one end flattened for spreading salves and depressing the tongue, the other cupped for lifting powders from a pyxis. Their forms are so conservative that dating rests largely on findspot and associated material rather than typology.\n\nThe tweezers belong to a different world. Luristan bronzeworkers of the western Zagros produced a distinctive repertoire of zoomorphic fittings, and the horned caprid head here, with drilled eyes and a ribbed collar below, follows that idiom. Such implements served cosmetic and depilatory purposes as readily as medical ones, and the boundary between grooming and healing was never firm in antiquity. Item # 73331

Lot: 407 - Byzantine Silver Insignia Ring | Christ in Majesty

Ancient Near East, Byzantine Empire, ca. 10th to 12th century CE. A Byzantine silver insignia ring with a circular bezel incised with three draped figures arranged symmetrically, surrounded by a punched dotted border. At the center, a haloed figure sits enthroned, holding a staff associated with spiritual authority. The frontal pose and nimbus suggest Christ in Majesty, rendered in simplified form. Flanking figures on either side likely represent saints or apostles. Cross formee motifs appear behind them, reinforcing the Christian context of the composition. Size: 1" Diameter (2.5 cm); US ring size: 9; silver quality: 96.2%; weight: 19 grams Item # 199111

Lot: 408 - Byzantine Carved Bone Winged Figure Disc in Gold Brooch Mount with Coral Bead

Eastern Mediterranean, Byzantine Empire. A small bone roundel, worked in shallow relief with a stylized standing winged figure whose outstretched pinions read almost as a cross, and drilled at the center with a single point. Concentric turned rings ornament the reverse, the mark of a lathe-finished disc. A coral bead sits above the figure's head like a nimbus. The bone is set in a round gold bezel edged with beaded granulation and fitted with a pin on the back, a later jeweler's mount that turns an early carving into wearable ornament. The figure is likely an angel, perhaps an archangel, a favored subject of Byzantine minor arts in bone and ivory. Byzantine workshops turned enormous quantities of small bone discs and plaques, the cheaper cousins of elephant ivory, for use as furniture inlay, box revetment, and gaming pieces. Lathe-turned concentric grooving on the reverse, as here, is a workshop signature of that industry: the blank was mounted and cut on a pole lathe before the face was carved by hand. Angels dominate Byzantine devotional imagery precisely because they were permissible: winged, incorporeal messengers whose cruciform silhouette carried the sign of the cross without depicting it outright, a useful ambiguity during and after the iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries. The coral bead added by the later mount would have been read, in the Mediterranean tradition that outlasted Byzantium by centuries, as an apotropaic charm against the evil eye. Item # 73332

Lot: 409 - Roman Blue Glass Bead Necklace, 1st-2nd C. CE, Restrung

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean to Near East. A long single strand of forty-five spherical glass beads in translucent sky blue, each separated by smaller beads of deeper cobalt and blue-green. The larger beads are slightly irregular, wound and rounded at the lamp so that no two match exactly, their surfaces softened by a faint iridescent bloom raised over centuries of burial. Blue was among the most prized colors in Roman glassmaking, achieved with cobalt or copper oxide, and strands of such beads served as personal adornment and, occasionally, as apotropaic charms against the evil eye. The ancient beads have been restrung in modern times with a clasp, wearable as originally intended. Glassmaking in the Roman world was transformed in the late 1st century BCE by the invention of the blowpipe, most likely in Syro-Palestinian workshops, but beadmaking retained older methods: molten glass was wound onto a rotating metal mandrel, then shaped and fire-polished. Workshops along the Levantine coast, where the sands of the Belus River yielded exceptional silica, supplied the empire with both vessels and beads, and blue examples travelled the length of Roman trade networks, from Britain to the Indian Ocean ports. The milky iridescence on ancient glass is not a pigment but a decay layer: alkali leaches from the surface in damp burial conditions, leaving microscopically thin laminae that refract light. Collectors prize it, and it is one of the surer visual indicators of genuine antiquity. Item # 73333

Lot: 410 - Near Eastern Carnelian and Agate Bead Necklaces, Pair, 1st Millennium BCE

Ancient Near East. A pair of single-strand necklaces strung from ancient hardstone beads in the warm register of the Near Eastern lapidary's palette. The first gathers nineteen multifaceted orange carnelian beads around a large faceted central carnelian and a single cream-and-brown banded agate, closed by a large gilt hook clasp. The second pairs carnelian with agate in barrel, bicone, and tabular cuts, their translucence broken by weathered, matte-surfaced examples. Both are modern strung, the second with a metal hook clasp. Carnelian was drilled and polished across the ancient Near East as an amuletic as well as ornamental stone, its blood-red fire believed to carry protective virtue, while banded agates were prized for the accident of their layering. Carnelian and banded agate travelled enormous distances in antiquity. Much of the raw material worked in Mesopotamia and the Persian plateau originated in the Indus valley and Gujarat, moving west by caravan and coastal shipping, so a single strand can encode a trade network stretching from the Arabian Sea to the Levant. The etched and heat-treated techniques used to deepen carnelian's color, and to bleach white lines into agate, are among the oldest documented lapidary processes in the world. Beads of this kind survive in quantity from burials and hoards and were rarely recovered with their original stringing intact, which is why restrung compositions such as these are standard in the market and why the assembled sequence should be read as a modern arrangement of ancient elements. Item # 73334

Lot: 411 - Luristan Bronze Bead Necklace with Seljuk Pendant

Western Asia, Iran, Luristan and Seljuk. A strand of graduated bronze beads, with a matte grey-green patina consistent with burial, gathered toward a small openwork pendant at the center. The beads, associated with the workshops of ancient Luristan in the Zagros highlands, are annular and disc forms, with irregular contours consistent with hand-casting. Suspended below is a later Seljuk pendant, a crescent-form amulet enclosing a pierced ring above a small rosette medallion, the metal with a silvery tone. Bronze ornaments of this type were worn as personal adornment across the Iranian plateau in antiquity. The pairing of Bronze Age beads with a medieval pendant reflects a later assembly of the piece as an heirloom or curiosity grouping. Please note that some elements of this necklace contain up to 5% lead. Item # 203819

Lot: 412 - Roman Cobalt Blue Glass Bottle, Spiral Thread Decoration

Roman. A free-blown bottle of cobalt blue glass, with a rounded body drawn up into a long slender neck, resolving in a small everted rim folded outward and flattened to a disc. The neck runs to nearly the height of the body, giving the vessel a continuous tapering profile from lip to base, with a thin, even wall throughout. A spiral thread of self-colored glass winds around the shoulder and upper body in approximately fifteen close revolutions, applied hot and marvered nearly flush with the surface. Bottles of this form served as containers for perfumed oils, and their long necks were designed to meter the contents drop by drop. They are among the most characteristic products of the Roman glass industry after the adoption of blowing transformed glass from a luxury material into a commodity of daily life. Item # 204197

Lot: 413 - Late Roman Glass Bottle with Blue Prunts, Levant

Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Late Roman to Early Byzantine. A small free-blown glass bottle, with a globular body rising to a narrow neck and an outsplayed rim with a rounded lip. Six applied blue glass prunts, flattened into shallow disks with flaring edges, ring the shoulder and wall. The vessel rests on a disk-shaped pad base of blue glass bearing an impressed pontil mark. The surface shows iridescent weathering, beneath which the glass retains an amber and rust coloration. Flasks of this type are associated with use as containers for perfumed oil or unguent. Item # 204061

Lot: 414 - Roman Green Glass Bead Strands with Amber or Resin Beads, 1st-2nd C.

Eastern Mediterranean, Roman, Imperial period. A bib of thirteen strands strung with hundreds of small glass beads in yellowish blue-green, their drawn and wound bodies flattened into disks, short cylinders, and squat globules, the surfaces softened by burial into a matte, chalky bloom. The strands are modern restrung in graduated sizes. Accompanying them is a group of eighty-three beads of natural resin or amber, warm red-orange to plum with a few honey-yellow examples, mostly barrel and tube forms with generously bored perforations. Both glass and resin beads were staples of Roman personal adornment across the eastern provinces, worn as necklaces and bracelets and also deposited with the dead, where the amber in particular carried apotropaic value. Roman glass beadmaking of the first two centuries CE relied on two chief techniques: drawing a hollow gather of molten glass into a long tube that was then chopped and tumbled into short disks, and winding a trail of glass around a rotating mandrel. The green tonality here comes from iron impurities in the sand, the commonest and cheapest coloration in the ancient repertoire, produced in bulk at furnaces along the Syro-Palestinian coast and distributed as raw chunks to secondary workshops throughout the empire. Amber travelled the opposite way. Baltic succinite reached the Mediterranean by the overland route Pliny the Elder describes in the Natural History, and Roman writers credited it with medicinal and protective powers, particularly for children. Distinguishing true amber from other fossil and modern resins by eye is unreliable; hardness, fluorescence, or FTIR testing would settle the question here. Item # 73335

Lot: 415 - Roman Glass Jar, Cobalt Zigzag Trail

Roman to Early Byzantine, ca. 4th to 6th century CE. Small globular jar of amber-olive glass with a folded, flattened rim collar, from which two cobalt handles rise in angular arcs, each drawn out at the shoulder into a small thumb-rest. A trail of the same dark blue glass zigzags around the belly in a continuous sawtooth register, applied hot and lightly marvered so that it stands proud of the wall. The contrast of the near-black trailing against the honey ground defines the vessel, the zigzag running at an even pitch around the full circumference without a visible join. Item # 204246

Lot: 416 - Roman Aubergine Glass Bowl

Roman, ca. late 1st century BCE to 1st century CE. Deep hemispherical bowl of aubergine glass, a manganese-purple so saturated it reads nearly black except where thin at the rim, encircled below the lip by a band of incised horizontal wheel-cut lines, with a second pair of grooves at the carination dividing the wall into two registers. Bowls of this type were cast and cold-worked on the lathe, a labor-intensive process placing them among the more expensive glass tablewares of their day. Item # 204251

Lot: 417 - Roman Blue-Green Glass Unguentarium with Pinched Feet

Roman, Imperial period, Eastern Mediterranean. A small blown bottle of blue-green metal, its bulbous body rising into a tall cylindrical neck that finishes in a high folded rim. Around the lower body run short rounded nubs, pinched from the softened wall with a tool and drawn outward until they tapered, each leaving a shallow dimple where the glass pulled away; together they lift the vessel off the surface as feet. Burial has laid down a film of iridescence in silver, gold, blue, and green. Vessels of this type held perfumed oils, unguents, and cosmetics, dispensed drop by drop through the narrow throat, and were as often placed with the dead as used at the dressing table. The invention of the blowpipe in the Syro-Palestinian workshops of the mid-1st century BCE turned glass from a luxury for the few into a commodity of the Roman household. Free-blown unguentaria became the standard container of the perfume trade, cheap enough to be discarded or interred, and it is precisely this abundance that has preserved so many. The iridescence prized today is accidental: alkali leaches from the surface during centuries of burial, leaving microscopically thin laminae that refract light into the peacock sheen the Romans themselves never saw. Item # 73336

Lot: 418 - Roman Yellow-Green Glass Amphoriskos with Blue-Green Handles, 1st-3rd C. CE

Eastern Mediterranean, Roman, Imperial period. A free-blown vessel of pale yellow-green metal, its ovoid body worked into soft vertical flutes that catch the light along their ridges. A long cylindrical neck rises to a wide, out-folded disc rim, and two solid ribbon handles of deeper blue-green glass were applied hot at the shoulder and drawn up to the neck, a deliberate chromatic contrast against the body. Scattered silvery iridescence films the surface, the slow gift of burial. Amphoriskoi of this scale served as containers for perfumed oils, unguents, and cosmetics, prized household luxuries in the Roman East and frequently deposited with the dead as grave goods. The amphoriskos, literally a "little amphora," miniaturizes the great transport jar of Mediterranean commerce into a vessel for costly liquids measured in drams rather than amphorae. Its glass equivalents proliferated after the invention of glassblowing in the Syro-Palestinian coastal workshops around the middle of the 1st century BCE, a technological rupture that turned glass from an elite luxury into a widely traded commodity within a generation. Workshops in the Roman East continued to exploit the older prestige of the shape while producing it at speed: body inflated and shaped, neck drawn and rim folded outward for strength, handles trailed on last from a separate gather. The use of a contrasting darker gather for handles and rim trails is a hallmark of Eastern Mediterranean glasshouses, where the second color announced the maker's control of two metals at once. Item # 73337

Lot: 419 - Roman Glass Guttus Flask - Spouted Vessel

Roman, Imperial period. A globular flask of blown pale green glass, with a rounded body drawn upward into a neck flaring to a folded, everted rim. A long tapering spout projects from the shoulder, the defining feature of the guttus, angled to dispense liquid in a controlled stream. The glass shows a silvery weathering patina with iridescence, consistent with long burial. Vessels of this type are sometimes referred to as feeder bottles, pourer flasks, or lamp-fillers; the form is generally understood to have served for dispensing oil or other liquids in small, controlled amounts, including for refilling oil lamps. The piece is free-blown in a single gather. Item # 204054

Lot: 420 - Roman Glass Unguentarium, Iridescent

Roman, Imperial period. Free-blown pale green translucent glass vessel with globular body, swelling from a rounded base to a short, constricted neck and an outward-folded, flaring rim. The body is decorated with spiraling ribbon trails formed during the blowing process. Surface exhibits silvery and iridescent weathering consistent with prolonged burial. Rolled lip at rim. No handles or applied decoration. Likely used for oils, unguents, or cosmetics in a Roman domestic context. Roman glassblowing, which emerged in the eastern Mediterranean during the first century BCE, transformed glass from a luxury rarity into an everyday material found across the Empire. Free-blown vessels like this jar could be produced quickly and in quantity, serving to store perfumes, medicines, and toilet preparations. The luminous iridescence prized by modern collectors is not original: it is the product of weathering, as moisture in the burial environment leaches alkalis from the glass and leaves behind microscopically thin, light-refracting layers. Item # 204053

Lot: 421 - Phoenician Core Formed Glass Alabastron with Yellow Zigzag Bands

Eastern Mediterranean to Near East, Phoenician. A deep cobalt blue core formed alabastron of slender ovoid body rising to a short neck and broad disc rim edged in yellow trailing. Two small opposing loop handles are applied at the shoulder. Fine yellow threads encircle the upper body, framing a wide central register of light blue and yellow trails marvered and combed into crisp zigzags, with two further yellow zigzag bands below. Wound over a friable core and rolled flat on a marver, the vessel held perfumed oil or scented unguent, a luxury commodity traded across the Levantine and Mediterranean world and frequently deposited in tombs. The rounded base needed no foot: such flasks were suspended by cord through the handles or set in a stand. Before the invention of glassblowing in the first century BCE, all glass vessels were built by hand. The core forming technique required a shaped mass of clay and organic binder fixed to a metal rod, over which molten glass was wound in a continuous trail; threads of contrasting color were then applied, marvered flush into the surface, and dragged with a pointed tool to produce the feathered and zigzag patterns seen here. Handles and rim were added last, and once cool the core was picked out through the mouth, leaving the interior characteristically rough. The workshops of the Phoenician coast, Sidon and Tyre among them, dominated this trade from the sixth century BCE onward, supplying alabastra, amphoriskoi, and aryballoi to markets from Cyprus and Rhodes to Carthage and the Black Sea. The cobalt ground imitated lapis lazuli, and the vessels themselves were often worth more than the aromatics they carried. Item # 73338

Lot: 422 - Roman / Hellenistic Glass Jar, Feather-Combed Pattern

Roman or Late Hellenistic, ca. 1st century BCE to 1st century CE. Globular jar of dark translucent brown-black glass, wrapped in an allover feather pattern of combed opaque red and white canes. The trails were laid horizontally and dragged at close, regular intervals, pulling each band into a row of overlapping scallops that spiral around the vessel from the flaring rim to the base. The combing holds its regularity across the full circumference, where on many surviving examples the intervals wander. The rim is everted and rounded, its underside likewise decorated, and the interior retains the dark ground unadorned. Item # 204248

Lot: 423 - Intact Hellenistic Core-Formed Glass Amphoriskos

Eastern Mediterranean, Hellenistic Period, ca. 2nd to 1st century BCE. Core-formed amphoriskos with a cobalt body wound with opaque yellow trails, spaced horizontally across the neck, then drawn together at the shoulder and combed into a festoon band of yellow, white, and pale blue swagging around the widest point before resolving into horizontal banding toward the pointed base. Two translucent blue strap handles arc from shoulder to neck, and a disc of yellow glass is folded at the lip; the vessel terminates in a small applied cobalt knob base, the most fragile element of the form and the first lost on most surviving examples. Core-formed vessels of this class held perfumed oils and unguents and traveled widely across the Mediterranean; the technique, winding molten glass around a removable core of dung and clay, predates glassblowing by centuries and was abandoned soon after glassblowing arrived. Item # 204250

Lot: 424 - Roman Mold-Blown Cupid Head Glass Flask, Sidon

Roman, Eastern Mediterranean, Sidon. A mold-blown flask, the bulbous body shaped as the head of Cupid, the winged god of desire. The face carries rounded cheeks, a rounded chin, and modeled curls, beneath a tall cylindrical neck and flaring disc rim. The glass was originally pale yellow, and now displays a silver and iridescent surface consistent with long burial. Flasks of this type held perfumed oils and unguents, used in Roman domestic contexts and documented in funerary contexts as well. Sidon, on the Phoenician coast, was a noted center of glassblowing production, and figural flasks of this type are associated with that regional tradition. Head-flasks were a specialty of eastern Mediterranean workshops, produced by blowing molten glass into two-part molds carved with a face. The choice of Cupid (Eros) was well suited to a perfume container: the god of love lent his charm to the fragrant contents within, and such vessels made fitting gifts and toilette accessories. Item # 204198

Lot: 425 - Large Roman Glass Modiolus Cup, Handled Drinking Vessel

Roman, ca. 1st century CE. Drinking cup of pale greenish colorless glass in the modiolus form, a deep, flaring bucket-shaped body set on a thick applied disc foot, with a single small ring handle at the upper wall. The rim is folded outward and rounded, with shallow horizontal tooled grooves encircling the lower body. The modiolus is among the more distinctive Roman drinking vessels, its name borrowed from the measure it resembles; surviving examples in glass are scarcer than their ceramic and silver counterparts. Item # 204252

Lot: 426 - Important Roman Glass Winged-Handle Cup, 1st Century CE

Roman. Roman, ca. 1st century CE. Footed cup of pale olive-green glass, with a deep conical body rising from a thick applied pad foot to a wide, plain rim. The handles are two broad horizontal wings extending beyond the profile of the cup, each pierced by a circular opening and finished at the outer edge with paired upturned points, cold-worked to planar edges, a treatment that mimics the cast and chased metalwork of contemporary silver and bronze drinking vessels. Elongated bubbles and internal striations run through the body, confirming free-blown manufacture prior to the handles being applied and worked. Item # 204247

Lot: 427 - Roman Glass Basket Jar - Green Handles, Purple Body

Roman, Imperial period. A free-blown vessel of the rare type collectors call the "basket jar", crowned with a ring of pale green loop handles that arch from shoulder to rim and lie flat across it like the plaited lip of a woven basket. The body is low and globular, deep purple shading to garnet where light passes through, set on a flat concave base beneath a short conical neck with a rounded, flared rim. Eleven slender trails of molten glass were drawn from the base and wound upward, terminating at the neck. Irregularities in the thickness and spacing of the applied threads betray the hand of the glassworker rather than any mold. Likely a table or storage vessel for precious liquids, its chromatic contrast of green against purple was the whole point. Ancient glassmaking began in the 2nd millennium BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia, moving from core-forming to mold-pressing and cold cutting, and finally, around the mid-1st century BCE in the Syro-Palestinian coastal workshops, to blowing. The invention transformed glass from a luxury imitation of stone into a material of everyday Roman life. Blowing is a performance as much as a craft: the artisan must spin and inflate a gob of molten glass simultaneously, judging wall thickness by feel. Applied elements such as these handles and trails were formed from separately heated rods, bent and fused to the still-hot body, a sequence that leaves no margin for correction. Bichrome effects of this kind, where a contrasting color is reserved for handles and trailing, are a hallmark of Late Roman workshops in the eastern Mediterranean, where colorants were manipulated deliberately rather than tolerated as impurity. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204254

Lot: 428 - Late Roman / Byzantine Glass Chalice with Millefiori

Ancient Near East, Late Roman to Byzantine period. A chalice hand-built from translucent honey-yellow glass, with a discoid foot beneath a spherical stem, a mastoid basin, and a ring of trailing around the rim. Several blue radiating millefiori were incorporated into the glass prior to shaping and cooling, visible around the midsection. Item # 203191

Lot: 429 - 2nd-3rd C. Roman Opaque White Glass Tyche Flask - Enthroned Goddess with Eros

Roman, Imperial period. A mold-formed figural flask of opaque white glass rendered as Tyche, goddess of fortune and civic guardian, enthroned in frontal majesty. The vessel's cylindrical neck and everted rim rise directly from her head, transforming the mural crown into the bottle's mouth, an inspired conflation of statue and container. She sits draped in chiton and himation, arms folded at the waist, seated cross-legged on a polygonal plinth, her proper right foot resting upon a stylized head: the river-god Orontes reduced to emblem. On the throne's proper left, a small winged Eros stands with arm raised, bearing a torch or wand; opposite him an indistinct bow and quiver appear in low relief. A single mold seam, faintly misaligned, runs from rim across body and base. Opaque white figural flasks are far rarer than their translucent kin, luxury vessels perhaps carrying unguents destined for votive offering. The type derives, at several removes, from the colossal bronze Tyche of Antioch fashioned by Eutychides of Sikyon (a pupil of Lysippos) around 296 BCE. That monument fixed the enduring image of the enthroned city-goddess crowned with turreted walls, one foot poised above the swimming youth who personifies the river Orontes. The composition radiated across the Roman East, adapted to coinage, terracotta, and, as here, glass. In this provincial translation the Orontes has become a stylized head beneath the goddess's foot, the mural crown has metamorphosed into the flask's neck, and a diminutive Eros has been introduced at the side of the chair, an embellishment not found in the prototype. Flasks of this form were almost certainly produced as souvenirs, their contents perhaps poured out in offering at public or private shrines. Comparanda are scarce. David Whitehouse (Roman Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, 2001, pp. 126-127, no. 632) catalogues the type and enumerates a small number of related examples, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art (44.11.6), the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (30219.238), two in the Yale University Art Gallery (Matheson, 1980, nos. 276-277), and one in the Museum Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv. The rarity of the group, and the added Eros, make this a distinguished survival. Please note that a similar glass flask hammered 43,750 GBP (now equivalent to $78,301.66) at Christie's London on 6 July 2016 as lot 273 in Live Auction 13850 ("Ancient Glass from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection." Item # 204245

Lot: 430 - Important Hellenistic Glass Skyphos

Greek, Roman. Glass skyphos of pale olive-green color, cast and cut, with a deep conical body rising from a splayed ring foot to a wide plain rim. Two ring handles are applied to the sides of the body, carved from blanks surrounded by raised squared-off areas, with flat thumb-rests above the rings and projecting wings above and below, designed to be held with thumb, forefinger, and middle finger. Rotary grinding marks remain visible on the interior, exterior, and base. Elongated bubbles and internal striations run through the body, consistent with the cast-and-cut manufacture of the vessel before the handles were applied and worked. Item # 204253

Lot: 431 - Egyptian Pre-Dynastic Wavy-Handled Jar, Nile Clay

Egypt, Pre-Dynastic, Naqada culture. A tall, tapering cylinder of orange-pink marl clay, coil-built and hand-smoothed, rising to a wide mouth ringed by a short, everted rim. Below the lip runs an encircling wavy groove, a vestigial memory of the raised, scalloped ledge-handles that once girdled such vessels and that survive here only as an ornamental ripple imitating cord or scallops. The undecorated body swells before drawing to a rounded base. Vessels of this class held oils or unguents and accompanied the dead into their graves, part of the funerary equipment of Upper Egyptian communities along the Nile. Wavy-handled jars occupy a singular place in the history of archaeology. Studying an enormous corpus of them excavated in the 1890s, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie noticed that the once-functional handles degenerated over time into a purely decorative wavy line, and finally into a mere painted band. From this observed sequence he devised Sequence Dating, the first systematic relative chronology for a prehistoric culture, ordering graves and their contents into a numbered progression. The method underpins virtually all subsequent understanding of the Naqada phases, and a jar such as this, with its handles already reduced to an incised ripple, sits toward the later, terminal end of that typological evolution, on the eve of Egyptian unification. For related examples see: Berman, Lawrence M., "The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Egyptian Art" (1999) pg. 111 #55, McKissick Museum, "The First Egyptians" (1988) pg 70 #30 and Needler W. "Predynastic and Archaic Egypt in the Brooklyn Museum" (1984) page 217 no.77. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204232

Lot: 432 - Egyptian Predynastic Black-Topped Redware Beaker, Naqada

Egypt, Pre-Dynastic, Naqada culture. Egypt, Predynastic Period, Naqada culture, ca. 3900 to 3100 BCE. Tapering beaker rising from a narrow base to a wide, open mouth. Body burnished, hand-built without the wheel. Lower two-thirds iron-oxide red; rim and interior black, characteristic of Predynastic black-topped redware, produced by firing the vessel mouth-down in ash to limit oxygen at the rim while the lower body oxidized red. Used for holding food or drink; this type is frequently found in Predynastic burial contexts. Item # 203699

Lot: 433 - Egyptian Ptolemaic Alabastron - Rare Lidded Form

Egypt, Late Period to Ptolemaic. An alabastron of spherical form with a fully detachable lid, a feature rarely preserved. Carved from banded Egyptian alabaster (calcite) with honey-colored veining and areas of translucency, the vessel has a narrow, carinated neck with a slightly everted rim. The lid, shaped like a miniature jar with twin pierced lugs, fits into the mouth and would have allowed the vessel to be sealed. Vessels of this type stored unguents, oils, or perfumes, valued for both practical and funerary use; the hardness of the stone and symmetry of the turning point to skilled craftsmanship, likely using copper tools and abrasive sand. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204228

Lot: 434 - Egyptian Middle Kingdom Travertine Ovoid Jar with Everted Rim

Egypt, Middle Kingdom. A compact ovoid jar hollowed from a single block of banded travertine, the stone shading from cream to warm honey-buff with mineral inclusions and encrusted burial deposits. The rounded shoulder tapers to a flat base, and a short neck rises to a thick everted rim. The exterior is smoothed rather than highly polished, while the deeply hollowed interior retains clear rotary-tool striations consistent with ancient drilling practice. Vessels of this shape held unguents, scented oils, and cosmetics, prized commodities placed among grave goods so the dead could continue their toilette in the afterlife. Egyptian craftsmen worked calcite-alabaster (geologically travertine) from quarries at Hatnub and Wadi Gerrawi, valuing its translucence and the way lamplight moved through its banding. Hollowing a vessel of this thickness was the slow part of the process: a weighted, crank-driven borer charged with abrasive sand was rotated inside the blank, and the concentric striations left on the interior wall remain the surest technical signature of ancient, rather than modern, manufacture. By the Middle Kingdom, stone unguent jars had become standard equipment in provincial burials as well as elite ones, often deposited alongside cosmetic spoons, kohl tubes, and mirrors. Their contents, perfumed fats and resinous oils, were costly enough that the container long outlived the commodity it was made to protect. Item # 73339

Lot: 435 - Egyptian Banded Calcite Ovoid Jar, Disc Rim

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period. Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period, ca. 664–30 BCE. Ovoid jar rising from a narrow, flat base to a full shoulder, drawing in to a short neck and heavy disc rim. The calcite is banded in green-white and cream, translucent where the wall thins at the shoulder. The rim is finished as a broad, flat collar, suited to receiving a linen or plaster seal, as such unguent jars typically were. Parallel abrasion marks remain visible from the final polishing strokes, and the interior retains the characteristic drilled hollow with irregular wall thickness. The stone commonly called "Egyptian alabaster" is in fact a banded calcite (travertine), quarried since the Old Kingdom from sites such as Hatnub in Middle Egypt. Its natural translucency and marbled banding made it the material of choice for containers meant to hold fragrant oils, whose costliness demanded a vessel of equal prestige. Unguent jars accompanied the living to the toilette table and the dead to the tomb, where sealed reserves of perfumed fat and oil were thought to sustain the body and please the senses of the deceased across eternity. Item # 204243

Lot: 436 - Intact Egyptian Alabaster Vase, Banded Calcite

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period. A tall cylindrical vessel of banded calcite-alabaster, its profile drawn in at the waist before flaring to a broad, cleanly rolled rim. The stone runs from honey at the lip through pale celadon and cream across the body, the natural bedding planes crossing the wall in soft diagonal bands. The interior is hollowed to an even wall and finished to a satin polish, with concentric traces of the tubular drill still legible near the base. Vessels of this form served as containers for unguents, oils, and cosmetic preparations, valued for the way translucent calcite kept precious contents cool and shielded from light. Such jars appear in both domestic and funerary settings throughout the Dynastic sequence, prized possessions carried into the tomb to serve the deceased in the afterlife. The Egyptians called this stone "shes" and quarried it chiefly at Hatnub, in the desert east of Amarna, and at Wadi Gerrawi. Though universally termed "alabaster" in the trade, the material is geologically a banded calcium carbonate (travertine or onyx-marble), not the softer gypsum alabaster of later European sculpture. Its faint translucency and warm veining made it the preferred medium for containers of costly oils and scented fats, from royal canopic jars to modest cosmetic pots. Hollowing a vessel like this required patient labor with tubular copper drills fed with abrasive sand, the spiral striations of which frequently survive on interior walls as they do here. Item # 204242

Lot: 437 - Egyptian Crown Section with Uraeus, Ram Horn and Maat Feather, Late Period

Egypt, Late period. A cast section of a composite crown, preserving the lower shaft of a plumed Maat feather incised with fine curving barbs, set above the long spiral horn of a ram. Coiled along the horn rises a uraeus with flared hood, its scales inlaid with turquoise and with red and tan jasper, the cobra crowned by a sun disc sheathed in gold foil. Such multi-element headdresses, combining feather, horn, solar disc and protective serpent, belonged to large-scale divine images, likely temple statuary or a divine bark ornament, where the assembled crown proclaimed royal legitimacy and solar kingship. Rivet studs along the feather show how the parts were joined. Surfaces carry scattered blue-green patina. Mounted on a custom base. The combination assembled here is the vocabulary of divine kingship. The ram's horn belongs to Amun, whose creative power the curling horn signals; the tall feather invokes Maat, cosmic order and truth; the solar disc gilded in gold foil marks the sun's daily renewal. The rearing cobra, the uraeus, is the goddess Wadjet, who spits fire at the wearer's enemies and sits at the brow of gods and kings alike. Crowns of this composite type, often loosely grouped under the atef and hemhem families, were built up from separately cast plumes, horns, discs and serpents riveted to a common armature, then enlivened with polychrome stone inlay: a technique that let Late Period bronze workshops produce headgear far larger and more elaborate than any single casting would allow. Item # 73340

Lot: 438 - Egyptian Oxyrhynchus Fish Scepter Finial with Lotus and Inlays

North Africa, Egypt, Late Period to Ptolemaic period. A heavy cast finial from the upper end of a scepter, crowned by an oxyrhynchus fish wearing a uraeus diadem and poised above an open lotus blossom. The petals retain white stone inlays and traces of red pigment, and the whole is sheathed in a blue-green patina. A suspension loop rises behind the crown; the flaring socket below once received a wooden shaft. The oxyrhynchus, called medjed by the Egyptians, is an elephant-snout fish sacred at the town that Greek settlers renamed Oxyrhynchus. Cast in an expensive alloy, the piece likely served as temple ritual equipment or as a votive offering deposited in a shrine by a prosperous worshipper. Custom display base included. The medjed earned its sanctity through one of Egypt's central myths. Osiris, murdered and dismembered by his brother Set, was gathered up piece by piece by his sister-wife Isis, who had already revived him once through the mysteries of mummification and conceived Horus by him. Every fragment was recovered save the phallus, which had been swallowed by the medjed fish. Towns across Egypt claimed custody of one relic or another, and the pilgrim traffic that followed was lucrative; the settlement known as Medjed, later Hellenized to Oxyrhynchus after Alexander's conquest, built its cult on the fish itself. Bronze standards and scepters surmounted by sacred animals proliferated in the Late Period, when temple workshops produced votive metalwork in quantity for donors seeking divine favor. The uraeus set upon the fish's head marks it as a divinity in its own right rather than merely an attribute, and the lotus beneath supplies the standard Egyptian emblem of solar rebirth, a fitting pairing with a creature bound to the resurrection of Osiris. Item # 73341

Lot: 439 - Egyptian Harpokrates Figure of Horus the Child, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period. A solid-cast figure of Horus the Child, standing with arms at his sides, crowned with the pschent of Upper and Lower Egypt and wearing the youth's sidelock that falls over the right shoulder. The ears are pierced for ornament, the eyes retain traces of their original inlays, and an integral loop behind the neck allowed the figure to be worn or suspended, marking it as an amuletic votive rather than a shrine statue. A separately cast uraeus once rose from the brow. The surface has cured to a mottled blue-green with darker blue-black passages. Cast in a copper alloy by the lost-wax method, the type was produced in quantity for temple dedications and personal protection during the Late Period. Mounted on a custom display base. Horus the Child, Harpokrates to the Greeks, is the posthumous son of Osiris and Isis, hidden in the marshes of Chemmis while his mother shielded him from Seth. That childhood peril made him the pre-eminent Egyptian guardian against scorpions, serpents, and disease, and the small bronzes of him multiplied in the first millennium BCE alongside the healing cippi that show him grasping dangerous animals. The sidelock and nudity mark divine childhood; the double crown asserts his inherited claim to the throne of the Two Lands, the legal victory won against Seth in the divine tribunal. The suspension loop is diagnostic. Figures of this scale were carried, hung in household shrines, or deposited at temple precincts such as Saqqara and Bubastis, where votive bronzes accumulated by the thousand. Inlaid eyes, here surviving in part, were typically of gold, silver, or glass paste, a refinement reserved for better workshop production. Item # 73342

Lot: 440 - Egyptian Miniature Seated Cat of Bastet, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period to Ptolemaic period. A miniature solid-cast figure of a seated cat, sacred to Bastet, poised in the canonical upright attitude: forelegs straight, hind legs tucked, tail curled forward along the right flank. Pricked ears, a slender neck, and a calm forward-facing muzzle give the small body its composure, while the eyes, whiskers, and mouth are softened beneath a mottled cuprous patina of deep green, turquoise, and cuprite red. Cast in a copper alloy, figures of this type served as votive offerings, dedicated at Bastet's sanctuaries by pilgrims and frequently deposited alongside mummified cats. Mounted on an old tapered hardwood block base. Bastet, patroness of the home, fertility, motherhood, and joyful protection, held her principal cult center at Bubastis in the eastern Nile Delta, where Herodotus described festival crowds arriving by barge in numbers he reckoned in the hundreds of thousands. Bronze cats were produced in enormous quantity through the Late Period and Ptolemaic era to answer that devotion, ranging from temple-scale seated figures to pocket-sized votives such as this one, and the vast cat cemeteries at Bubastis, Saqqara, and Speos Artemidos preserve the mummified animals they accompanied. Item # 73343

Lot: 441 - Egyptian Miniature Gold Amulet of Bastet, New Kingdom

Egypt, New Kingdom. A miniature solid-cast gold cat sits upright on a thin integral plinth, forelegs straight, haunches gathered, tail curled along one flank. Despite its diminutive scale the modeling is crisp: pricked ears, incised eyes and muzzle, and a slender collar with pendant traced across the chest. A suspension loop rises between the shoulders, so the figure was worn, likely strung as a personal amulet. The seated feline is the canonical form of Bastet, guardian of the household, of women in childbirth, and of the sun god's protective rage tempered into domestic favor. Gold, incorruptible and identified with the flesh of the gods, made the most potent medium such a charm could take. Mounted on a small black lucite display base. Bastet's cult centered on Bubastis in the eastern Delta, where Herodotus later described the most exuberant festival in Egypt. In earlier periods she was figured as a lioness, a fierce solar daughter; by the New Kingdom and increasingly thereafter the domestic cat became her preferred body, and the goddess softened into a protector of home, fertility, and the newborn while retaining a lioness's teeth for enemies of the sun.\n\nXRF analysis reported by the consignor gives an alloy of approximately 85.75% gold (20.5K), with roughly 7.5% copper, 5% silver, 1% tungsten, 0.5% germanium, and under 0.2% nickel. The silver-and-copper-bearing composition is broadly consistent with unrefined Egyptian gold; the reported tungsten and germanium values are unusual and would warrant confirmation by a second analysis. Item # 73344

Lot: 442 - Egyptian Faience Ushabti of Psamtik, Son of Mer-Neith, 27th Dynasty

Egypt, Saqqara, Late Period, 27th Dynasty. A turquoise-glazed faience ushabti made for Psamtik, son of Mer-Neith, overseer of the scribes of the Royal Meals. The mummiform figure wears a tripartite wig and plaited false beard, the crisply modeled face set with alert eyes and a faint smile, and grips a hoe and pick with a seed bag slung behind the shoulder. Nine horizontal registers of incised hieroglyphs band the legs, with a single dorsal pillar of text down the back, all rising from an integral rectangular plinth. Such figures were deputies for the dead, animated by the shabti spell to answer the call to labor in the fields of the afterlife. Mounted on a lucite block base. The tomb of Psamtik, son of Mer-Neith, was excavated at Saqqara in 1860, one of the great shaft burials of the early Persian period in Egypt. His shabti series, unusually numerous and unusually fine, was subsequently dispersed by the Egyptian Antiquities Service; examples entered several major European museum collections as well as private hands, and the group remains a benchmark for the workshop standard of the 27th Dynasty.\n\nPublished type: J.-F. and L. Aubert, Statuettes egyptiennes: Chaouabtis, ouchebtis (Paris, 1974), p. 240; H. D. Schneider, Shabtis, part II (Leiden, 1977), p. 179, no. 5.3.1.137, pl. 60.\n\nThe brilliant blue-green glaze is characteristic of Late Period faience, a quartz-based body self-glazing through efflorescence of alkali salts drawn to the surface during drying and fired to the color the Egyptians called tjehenet, "that which gleams," associated with regeneration and the fertile world reborn. Item # 73345

Lot: 443 - Egyptian Faience Naos Sistrum Handle with Hathor Head and Felines

Egypt, Late Period, 26th Dynasty. A blue-green faience sistrum handle rising into the face of Hathor, cow-eared and framed by the straight striated wig, her mouth set in a faint smile. Above the goddess sits the lower stage of the naos-shaped sound box, its outer piers flanked by rearing uraei and its central opening occupied by two felines turned back to back. The molded faience carries a soft glassy sheen over a pale core. Shaken in temple ritual, the naos sistrum was less an instrument than an empowered substitute for Hathor herself, and for the other great goddesses who shared her generative and dangerous powers. The naos sistrum reached its developed form in the Middle Kingdom and remained in use for two millennia, its architecture fixed: a handle, a Hathor mask, and above it a shrine (naos) whose crossbars carried loose metal jingles. The sound it made, a dry rattle likened to wind through papyrus, was believed to pacify a goddess in her ferocious aspect and to rouse her benevolent one. Priestesses and, later, elite women carried them in processions for Hathor, Isis, and Bastet.\n\nThe felines set in the shrine opening and the uraei at its flanks belong to the same theology of the appeased goddess: the returning Distant One, Sekhmet turned Bastet, whose rage cooled into fertility and music. Faience, self-glazing and brilliantly blue-green, was itself the color of Hathor's turquoise, the material of renewal. Item # 73346

Lot: 444 - Egyptian Faience Ushabti for General Ankh-Wahibre-Sa-Nieth, 26th Dynasty

Egypt, Giza, Late Period, XXVI Dynasty. A mummiform funerary servant moulded in blue-green faience, glaze pooling turquoise in the modelled hollows. The figure wears a striated tripartite wig and long plaited false beard, arms crossed right over left, a pick shouldered on the right and a hoe with cord running to a small seed sack behind the left. A dorsal pillar rises to the wig and the feet rest on a rectangular plinth. Nine crisply incised horizontal registers wrap the lower body, naming General Ankh-Wahibre-Sa-Nieth, son of Hetepwebastet (Hetep-bastet). Such shabtis were interred in quantity to labour on their owner's behalf in the fields of the hereafter, answering when summoned. Presented on a lucite display block. The shabti spell, Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead, is the text these registers carry: the figure is charged to step forward "here I am" whenever the deceased is called to plough the fields, flood the banks, or ferry sand from east to west. Saite Period workshops of the XXVI Dynasty perfected the type seen here, with its sharply cut horizontal bands, dorsal pillar, and plinth, producing sets of several hundred in moulded faience of exceptional finish. The name Ankh-Wahibre honors the pharaoh Wahibre (Apries), while the theophoric element Sa-Nieth, "son of Neith," points to the goddess of Sais, tutelary deity of the Saite royal house. Provenance: Private Connecticut collection; Maurice Bouvier Collection (1901-1981). Exhibited: Antiken Museum, Basel, Switzerland, 1999. Bibliography: J.F. and L. Aubert, Statuettes Egyptiennes, Paris, 1974, p. 235, fig. 147; H. Schlogl, Le don du Nil. Art egyptien dans les collections suisses, Basel, 1978, no. 176. Item # 73347

Lot: 445 - Middle Kingdom Limestone Offering Relief, 12th Dynasty, Beni Hasan

Egypt, Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty. A limestone group statuette carving three figures shoulder to shoulder against a shared back slab, their forms emerging from the block in high relief. At left a man stands in the striding pose, his left foot advanced, his facial features and wig still bearing traces of ancient pigment. Two women flank him, feet together, arms held at their sides, rendered in the slender, elongated proportions favored by Middle Kingdom sculptors. Faint incised traces along the base suggest a hieroglyphic offering once named the household. Such family groupings belonged to the mortuary sphere, where wife, daughter, and kin were bound to the deceased as perpetual ritual supporters, sustaining his memory and his provisioning in the afterlife. The base preserves traces of an offering formula referencing "oxen," "fowl," and "sepulchral meals," conventional provisions for the ka of the deceased, along with a partly preserved royal name tentatively identified as one of the kings named Senuseret. The Middle Kingdom (roughly 2055 to 1650 BCE) marked a flowering of private funerary sculpture, and the rock-cut tombs of Beni Hasan, seat of provincial governors of the Oryx nome, are among its richest sources. Family group statues of this type were installed in tomb chapels or offering niches, where the living could present provisions before them. The convention of pairing a striding male with static female figures, feet together and arms at sides, encodes gendered ideals of the age: the man in active motion, the women as stabilizing, eternal presences. Together they formed a self-sufficient ritual unit, ensuring that the offering cult would continue even when no priest remained to perform it. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204237

Lot: 446 - Egyptian Alabaster Ushabti with Tripartite Wig, Middle Kingdom

Egypt, Middle Kingdom. A small mummiform figure carved from semi-translucent alabaster (calcite), its pale surface warmed by honeyed inclusions and faint russet staining in the recesses. The body tapers from broad shoulders to a rounded plinth-like base, the arms folded across the chest with fingers lightly delineated. A tripartite wig frames a serene face with softly modelled brows, eyes, nose and lips, the ears rendered in low relief. Uninscribed, as many of the earliest such figures are. Ushabtis were placed in the tomb to labor on the deceased's behalf in the fields of the afterlife, standing in whenever the owner was summoned to work. The undersized scale is typical of the form, which was made to accompany rather than to dominate the burial assemblage. The ushabti (also shabti or shawabti) emerges in the Middle Kingdom as a substitute body for the deceased, developing out of the wax and wooden figures of the First Intermediate Period. Early examples are frequently uninscribed and carved in stone or wood, one to a burial; only in the New Kingdom does the practice expand into the famous sets of 401 figures, one worker for each day of the year plus thirty-six overseers. Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead supplies the formula that animates them: when the deceased is called to plough the fields, irrigate the banks or carry sand, the figure answers "here I am."\n\nEgyptian "alabaster" is not the gypsum alabaster of European sculpture but travertine calcite, quarried principally at Hatnub in Middle Egypt. Prized for its translucency and its association with purity, it was reserved for canopic jars, offering vessels, and the finer class of funerary sculpture. Item # 73348

Lot: 447 - Egyptian Faience Ushabti for Nebta with Eight Register Inscription

Egypt, Late Period, 25th Dynasty. A mummiform servant figure in faience under a mottled blue-green glaze, molded in the image of Osiris with a plaited false beard and a tripartite wig framing a softly modeled face. The crossed hands grip hoes for the labor awaiting their owner in the field of reeds. An inscription in eight registers begins on the dorsal pillar and wraps onto the front of the body in horizontal bands, naming the deceased, read as Nebta. Such figures were deposited in burials by the dozen, each one a proxy who would answer when the dead were summoned to work, so that the tomb owner might rest while the shabti stepped forward in his place. Set on a wood display base. The shabti's job description is set out in Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead, the text most commonly inscribed on figures of this type: should the deceased be called upon to cultivate the fields, irrigate the banks, or carry sand from east to west in the netherworld, the figure answers "here I am" and goes in his stead. By the 25th Dynasty the form had settled into the canonical late type seen here, a back pillar, a rectangular plinth beneath the feet, hoes and a seed bag rendered in relief, and a body inscription arranged in horizontal registers rather than a single vertical column. Kushite-period faience of this class was typically formed in two-part molds and finished by hand before firing, the alkaline glaze drawing its blue-green from copper. Firing conditions and burial chemistry account for the mottling and the variable tone across the surface. Item # 73349

Lot: 448 - Egyptian Faience Ushabti with Seven Registers of Hieroglyphs, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period. A mummiform servant figure moulded in pale creamy green faience, the body sheathed as a wrapped corpse and crowned by a tripartite royal wig with plaited false beard. Both fists emerge from the shroud gripping agricultural implements, and seven horizontal registers of hieroglyphs band the lower body, answered by a single vertical column running down the dorsal pillar. Small in scale, the figure served as a magical proxy for the deceased, animated by the inscribed formula to labor on its owner's behalf in the fields of the afterlife. Mounted on a custom tiered lucite base. The banded text is almost certainly a version of Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead, the shabti spell, in which the figure is charged to answer ("ushabti" is conventionally read as "answerer") whenever the deceased is called upon to plough fields, irrigate banks, or carry sand from east to west. From the New Kingdom onward the hoes and seed bag carried in the hands make the commission literal. By the Late Period wealthy burials could include a full corps of 401 figures, one worker for each day of the year plus thirty-six overseers, mass-produced from moulds in the pale glassy faience seen here rather than individually carved. The dorsal pillar column typically carries the owner's name and titles; a reading of the glyphs would identify him. Item # 73350

Lot: 449 - Amarna Limestone Relief Fragment with Duck and Lotus

Egypt, New Kingdom, Amarna period. A duck glides through carved marshland on this limestone relief fragment, its head turned in profile with a neatly incised eye and flattened bill. The bird is cut in shallow sunk relief, the plumage rendered as broad planes bounded by crisp contour lines, with a lotus or papyrus bloom rising beneath the beak and a tall stem crossing the field behind the back. Traces of red, ochre and pale blue pigment survive in the recesses, remnants of the polychrome scheme that once made such scenes vivid. Marsh vignettes of this kind decorated the walls of Amarna palaces, shrines and villas, where teeming Nile fauna expressed the abundance of a world renewed under the Aten. Mounted on a lucite display base. The reign of Akhenaten (ca. 1353 to 1336 BCE) reoriented Egyptian art as thoroughly as it reoriented Egyptian religion. Builders at Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna) worked in small, standardized limestone blocks known as talatat, quickly quarried and quickly laid, their faces carved in shallow sunk relief and finished in bright paint. When the city was abandoned and dismantled, tens of thousands of these blocks were reused as fill in later constructions at Hermopolis and Karnak, which is why Amarna relief survives so often as isolated fragments of a once-continuous wall.\n\nWaterfowl among papyrus and lotus were a favored Amarna subject, part of a naturalism that let artists observe birds, plants and animals with an intimacy earlier canons discouraged. In the theology of the Aten, the sun's light quickened every living thing, and the crowded marsh was its proof.\n\nNote that the legacy record's "19th dynasty" designation conflicts with the Amarna attribution; the Amarna period falls within the late 18th Dynasty. Item # 73351

Lot: 450 - Egyptian Alabaster Bowl Fragment with Central Tondo, Early Dynastic

Egypt, Early Dynastic period. A large section of a shallow open bowl cut from cream, semi-translucent alabaster, the stone thinned until light passes through its walls. The rim turns gently inward above a smoothly swelling body, and the floor carries a shallow circular tondo, a lathe-like centering mark left proud by the grinding process. Vessels of this refinement were produced by patient abrasion with copper tubular drills and sand, a labor measured in weeks, and served elite households and tomb assemblages where stone tableware signified rank. Mottled ochre veining drifts across the surface, the geological signature of the Egyptian calcite quarries. Now presented on a custom hardwood base that holds the fragment upright as a profile section. Egyptian stone vessels reached their technical summit in the Early Dynastic period, when royal workshops produced tens of thousands of bowls, plates, and jars in calcite, diorite, schist, and porphyry. The subterranean galleries beneath the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara yielded an estimated 40,000 such vessels, many inscribed with the names of First and Second Dynasty kings, evidence that stoneware was accumulated as royal treasure and interred as capital rather than merely as tableware. The stone conventionally called Egyptian alabaster is not the gypsum alabaster of European sculpture but a banded calcite (travertine), quarried principally at Hatnub in Middle Egypt. Its translucency was prized: filled with oil or water, a thin-walled bowl glows. The ancient name for the material and the vessel form share a root with the goddess Bast, a linguistic thread later carried into the Greek "alabastron". Item # 73352

Lot: 451 - Egyptian Late Period Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Mummiform Figure with Plumed Crown

Egypt, Late Period. A tall mummiform god in carved hardwood, standing rigid and shroud-wrapped upon an integral plinth. The face is finely cut, calm and full-lipped beneath a heavy tripartite wig, with a plaited ceremonial beard at the chin. A separately carved crown of double Maat plumes rises from the crown of the head, socketed into place. Over a white gesso ground survive traces of blue and ocher pigment with black detailing, marking out a broad collar and pectoral across the chest. Such composite figures of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris were placed in the tomb as guarantors of regeneration, and many were hollowed to hold a papyrus or a linen-wrapped corn mummy. Mounted on a custom bronze-covered display base. Ptah-Sokar-Osiris fuses three deities into a single funerary theology: Ptah of Memphis, craftsman and creator; Sokar, the falcon god of the Memphite necropolis; and Osiris, ruler of the dead and archetype of resurrection. The syncretism, fully formed by the Third Intermediate Period and standard by the Late Period, condensed the entire cycle of making, dying, and rising again into one image, and figures of this type became a near-universal component of well-appointed burials. The double plumes of Maat crowning the head assert the deceased's vindication before the tribunal of Osiris.\n\nThe figure was acquired from the Norio Azuma Gallery in Soho, a New York dealership known for eclectic holdings of antiquities and Asian material during the 1980s. Item # 73353

Lot: 452 - Egyptian Faience Amulet Brooch, Solar Barque with Scarab and Wedjat Danglers

Egypt, Late Period amulets in a modern setting. A custom brooch built around five ancient blue-green glazed faience amulets, suspended as danglers from an engraved bar below a stylized solar barque with rudder and central sun disc. The gold sheet is finely chased with feathered, chevron, and hatched ornament, and an integral pin is fitted to the reverse. The danglers comprise a central scarab flanked by two wedjat (uzat) eyes and two standing deity figures, each captured in a modern gold mount. The amulets themselves were protective charms, worn in life and wrapped with the dead: the scarab for regeneration, the wedjat for wholeness and healing. The goldwork carries a maker's mark struck in three places. XRF analysis reports 12.6K: 52.5% gold, 6.5% silver, 40.25% copper, 0.25% iron, 0.5% germanium. The solar barque is one of the oldest images in Egyptian religion: the vessel in which Ra crosses the day sky and then the perilous waters of the night, to be reborn at dawn. Mounting a scarab, the beetle-form of the morning sun Khepri, at the center of that boat is iconographically apt, and the two wedjat eyes flanking it repeat the theme of restoration after loss, the eye of Horus torn out in combat and made whole again.\n\nFaience amulets of this kind were mass-produced in molds during the Late Period, when funerary equipment reached its widest circulation. The strong copper content indicated by XRF places the gold in the low-karat range typical of Near Eastern and Egyptian workshop jewelry of the twentieth century, when antiquities were routinely set into wearable mounts for Western collectors and travelers. Item # 73354

Lot: 453 - Egyptian Faience Button Scarab in 1920s Lotus Ring

Egypt, Late Period, scarab; 1920s ring setting. A blue-green glazed faience button scarab, modeled in the round with a crisply defined clypeus, ridged elytra, and folded legs tucked beneath a domed back. The beetle is claw-set into a custom early 20th C. gold ring, its oval bezel edged with a finely twisted rope border and its shoulders engraved with a stylized lotus blossom on each side. Scarabs of this compact button type were worn as amulets of regeneration, the dung beetle Khepri rolling the sun into each new dawn, and were carried in life as much as buried with the dead. The setting turns the ancient amulet back into a wearable talisman. XRF analysis of the mount reports 18.3K gold. The scarab beetle carried one of the densest symbolic loads in Egyptian religion. Khepri, the beetle-headed aspect of the morning sun, was imagined pushing the solar disc above the horizon as the beetle rolls its ball of dung, and the verb kheper, "to come into being," gave the amulet its promise of renewal. Faience, a quartz-paste body self-glazing in the kiln to a turquoise sheen, was the standard medium: cheap in materials, luminous in effect, and understood as a manufactured stand-in for turquoise and lapis. Mounting Egyptian antiquities in contemporary jewelry became a fashion in the 1920s, sharpened by the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. The lotus-engraved shoulders here are an Egyptian Revival flourish added by the jeweler, not an ancient feature. XRF of the mount reports 76.4% gold, 9.75% silver, 12.9% copper, 0.1% zinc, 0.1% iron. Item # 73355

Lot: 454 - Egyptian Faience Wedjat Eye Amulet in Gold Pendant Mount, Late Period

North Africa, Egypt, Late Period. A wedjat eye amulet in glazed faience, its blue-green surface still carrying the crisp incision of the arching brow and the hatched teardrop marking below. The raised pupil retains its black glaze, and traces of white glaze survive across the ruled lines of the descending cheek stripe. Modest in scale and pierced for wear in antiquity's manner, such amulets guarded the living and the dead alike, invoking the restored eye of Horus as a promise of wholeness. The plaque is now secured in a custom gold frame, cut to follow the silhouette exactly, with two struck hallmarks along the upper edge and a soldered suspension loop, a jeweller's adaptation of the 1920s that leaves the amulet wearable. The wedjat (also transliterated udjat or uzat) is the eye of Horus, torn out by Seth during their struggle for the throne of Egypt and made whole again by Thoth. That restoration is the amulet's entire argument: the sign means soundness, completeness, and healing, and its component strokes were reused by scribes as fractional notations for grain measure. Faience, a self-glazing quartz paste rather than a true clay, was the material of choice for such protective charms; the copper colorants that give it this turquoise cast were themselves associated with regeneration. Amulets of this form were produced in enormous numbers during the Late Period, strung on the living as jewellery and laid within mummy wrappings, frequently over the incision through which the body had been eviscerated. Item # 73356

Lot: 455 - Egyptian Faience Bowl Fragment Pendant / Brooch, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period, faience fragment in a later mount. A shard of ancient Egyptian faience rescued into wearable form. The blue-green glazed fragment, once the wall of a bowl or chalice, carries painted black decoration in manganese: a register of tapering petals or stalks rising from a banded groundline, the abbreviated lotus vocabulary that ringed drinking vessels made for offering and festival use. Its powdery surface still holds the alkaline patina of burial. The fragment is bezel-set in silver with an engraved inner band of stylized foliate ornament and a boldly sawtoothed outer edge, the reverse fitted with a hinged pin and a suspension loop so the piece may be worn either as a brooch or on a chain. Egyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica mixed with natron and copper compounds, which migrate to the surface during firing and bloom into the turquoise skin the Egyptians called tjehenet, "that which is dazzling." The color deliberately imitated turquoise and lapis, materials associated with rebirth and with Hathor, and the lotus-petal registers painted on Late Period bowls and chalices carried the same promise: the blue lotus closes at dusk and reopens at dawn, an emblem of regeneration fitting for vessels used in funerary and temple offering. Mounting antiquities as jewelry was standard practice among collectors and dealers working in Egypt in the early twentieth century, when excavated sherds too fragmentary for the cabinet were given new life by local silversmiths for the traveling market. Item # 73357

Lot: 456 - Egyptian Faience Isis Lactans Amulet Pendant, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period. A small blue-green faience amulet of Isis enthroned, the infant Horus cradled across her lap and drawn to her breast. The goddess wears a long sheath and tripartite wig beneath a tall crown, her throne rendered as a plain block with a broad backing plate that rises behind her head, its reverse worked with fine incised hatching. Modeled in a mold and glazed to a soft turquoise, worn now to a matte, mineral bloom. The nursing pose, Isis lactans, was among the most widely worn protective types in Egypt, invoking maternal safeguarding and the transmission of legitimate kingship to the child god. Mounted in a custom modern gold cage setting with an arched frame and suspension ring for wear. Isis lactans became one of the defining images of Egyptian religion in the first millennium BCE, multiplying in bronze statuettes and faience amulets during the Late Period and Ptolemaic era. The myth behind it is the Osirian cycle: after Seth murders Osiris, Isis conceals the infant Horus in the marshes of Chemmis and raises him to manhood, at which point he claims his father's throne. Every pharaoh was Horus on earth, so the milk of Isis was understood to confer not merely nourishment but the legitimacy of rule, and the goddess's own name is written with the hieroglyph of a throne.\n\nEgyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica bound with natron and lime, colored with copper compounds, which migrates alkali salts to the surface during firing to form a glossy blue-green skin. Egyptians called it tjehenet, "that which gleams," and prized its color as an evocation of Nile water, renewal, and life. Item # 73358

Lot: 457 - Egyptian Faience Thoth Amulet Pendant, Late Period, Ibis-Headed God

North Africa, Egypt, Late Period. A small blue-green glazed faience amulet of Thoth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom, writing, magic, and the moon, modeled standing with the long curved beak lowered and the left leg advanced in the standard striding pose. The molded body preserves crisp shoulders and kilt beneath a soft, weathered glaze, with a pierced back pillar typical of amulets strung for wear. Such figures were carried by the living for protection and healing, and tucked into mummy wrappings to secure a favorable verdict at the weighing of the heart. The ancient element is now held in a custom modern gold cage mount with a suspension loop, so the piece may be worn. Thoth presided over scribes, reckoning, and the sacred word, and in the funerary literature he stands at the scale in the Hall of Two Truths, recording the result as the heart is balanced against the feather of Maat. That role made his image one of the most useful amulets a Late Period Egyptian could own: a divine advocate at the moment of judgment. His ibis form derives from the sacred ibis of the Nile marshes, birds bred, mummified, and interred by the million at Tuna el-Gebel and Saqqara during precisely this era. Egyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste; alkali salts migrate to the surface during drying and vitrify in the kiln, yielding the characteristic turquoise skin from copper colorant. The Egyptians called it tjehnet, "that which shines", and prized it as an affordable stand-in for turquoise and lapis. Item # 73359

Lot: 458 - Amarna Period Glass and Gold Pomegranate Bead Necklace, 18th Dynasty

Egypt, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarna period. A single strand of ten powder-blue elliptical glass beads punctuated by two deep midnight-blue examples, the darker pair marbled with pale spiral trails drawn into the hot matrix. Thirteen gold beads of pomegranate form, each a small burnished sphere finished with a flaring calyx, alternate with the glass, and minute turquoise and green disc spacers separate the elements. The glass is opaque and core-formed, its saturated tones imitating turquoise and lapis lazuli. In Egyptian symbolic vocabulary the pomegranate, introduced from the Levant during the New Kingdom, carried associations of fertility and abundance. Restrung in modern times with a clasp and wearable. Opaque colored glass was among the most prized luxury materials of the 18th Dynasty, and the royal workshops at Tell el-Amarna, Akhenaten's short-lived capital, were the principal producers. Excavations there recovered furnaces, crucibles, and rods of raw glass in the same powder blue and cobalt seen here, colors achieved with copper and cobalt respectively and valued precisely because they mimicked turquoise and lapis lazuli, stones that had to be imported at great expense. Glass in this period was a royal monopoly rather than a common commodity, distributed as gift and reward.\n\nThe pomegranate entered Egypt from the Levant during the New Kingdom and quickly became a favored motif in jewelry, vessels, and funerary offerings, its dense seed cluster read as a sign of fertility and plenty. Pomegranate-form gold beads and pendants appear in elite burials of the period, including material from the Valley of the Kings. Item # 73360

Lot: 459 - Egyptian New Kingdom Red Amethyst & Gold Bicone Bead Necklace, 19th-20th Dynasty

Egypt, New Kingdom, 19th-20th Dynasty. A single strand of thirty small double-conical red-amethyst beads alternating with nine gold beads of matching bicone profile, each stone facet catching light along its ridged waist. The ancient beads have been professionally restrung on a handmade modern gold chain fitted with a modern gold clasp, individually wire-linked so each element floats free. Bicone beads of this scale were staples of New Kingdom personal adornment, worn in strands and collars by the living and carried into the tomb as protective ornament, the warm red of the stone associated with vitality and blood. Wearable as strung. Amethyst was quarried by the Egyptians chiefly at Wadi el-Hudi, southeast of Aswan, where Middle Kingdom expedition stelae record royal missions sent for the stone. The purple varieties dominate earlier jewelry; strongly reddish material of the kind seen here reflects iron-rich inclusions and heat, and such warm-toned beads were prized alongside carnelian for their solar and life-giving associations. Gold, "the flesh of the gods," carried a parallel charge of imperishability, so the alternation of stone and metal in a single strand is as much amuletic arithmetic as it is ornament. Restringing ancient beads on modern findings is standard, longstanding practice in the trade: it stabilizes a fragile assemblage and returns it to wearable use without altering the ancient elements themselves. Item # 73361

Lot: 460 - Egyptian Faience Multi-Strand Bead Necklace - Flapper Restringing

Egypt, Late Period. A cascade of turquoise-blue faience tube beads, many strands deep, their glazes ranging from bright copper blue to soft green and grey where burial altered the surface. Longer straw-yellow cylinders and small dark discs punctuate the flow at intervals, gathering the strands into rhythmic bands, while a carved faience element hangs at the terminal drop. The tiny beads were formed in enormous quantities by Egyptian workshops, strung into broad collars and shrouds for the living and the dead alike, the blue-green glaze read as a color of renewal and divine protection. Excavated beads such as these were rethreaded in the early twentieth century into long, swinging ropes suited to flapper dress, so the arrangement is modern while the components themselves are ancient. Faience is not a clay body at all but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica mixed with natron and copper compounds, shaped, then fired so that the salts migrate to the surface and vitrify into a glassy blue-green skin. The Egyptians called it tjehenet, "that which is brilliant," valuing it as an affordable stand-in for turquoise and lapis lazuli. The vogue for wearing excavated beads peaked after the 1922 opening of Tutankhamun's tomb, when Egyptomania swept European and American fashion. Dealers in Cairo and Luxor supplied loose ancient beads by the handful, and jewelers restrung them as sautoirs, the long ropes that suited the dropped waistlines of the decade. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204227

Lot: 461 - Egyptian Late Dynastic Faience Necklace w/ Amphora Pendants

Egypt, Late Period. A row of mould-made ribbed faience pendants in the form of miniature amphorae dangles from a strand of graduated faience beads, their glaze shifting between pale turquoise, cobalt, and muted green. Disc and spherical spacers separate the drops, each tiny vessel fluted along its body and tapering to a rounded foot. Amphora-shaped pendants entered Egyptian beadwork in the Late Period, likely alluding to containers of oil, perfume, or wine and perhaps carrying auspicious or protective significance. The characteristic blue is the signature palette of Egyptian faience. Assembled here as a wearable necklace, the beads preserve the earthy, weathered surfaces of long burial while retaining the cool chromatic range prized in ancient adornment. Egyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica mixed with alkaline salts and copper colorants, which migrate to the surface during firing to form a glassy, vitreous skin. Prized as a substitute for turquoise and lapis, its luminous blue-green was associated with fertility, rebirth, and the life-giving Nile. The amphora, a two-handled storage vessel, became a popular amuletic and decorative motif in the first millennium BCE, its form echoing the wine and perfume jars central to both daily life and funerary offering. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204231

Lot: 462 - Egyptian Faience Bead Necklace w/ Amulet of Bes, ex-Mitry

North Africa, Egypt, Third Intermediate to Late Dynastic Period. A pendant amulet of the dwarf-god Bes on a strand of ancient faience beads, the glaze retaining a pale blue-green coloration. The figure is modeled in the round and worked on both faces, standing frontally in a bandy-legged pose with a lion mane and plumed headdress. The tubular and disc beads, in shades of turquoise, cream, and darkened green, alternate along the strand. Bes was associated in Egyptian belief with protection of households, women in childbirth, and sleepers, with his grimacing face understood as an apotropaic device rather than a hostile image. The ancient elements have been restrung on a modern cord for wearability. Item # 204148

Lot: 463 - Egyptian Blue Faience Ankh Amulet with Was Scepter, New Kingdom

Egypt, New Kingdom. A small amulet of brilliant turquoise-blue glazed faience, moulded as an ankh whose open loop and beaded crossbar frame a was scepter rising through the center. The scepter's forked base sits on the shaft below, while its crook terminates in the stylized canine head of the Set animal, crisply modelled with long muzzle and squared ear. An integral ribbed suspension loop crowns the loop of the ankh, and the reverse is left plain but for the pierced silhouette. Ankh and was together compose one of the oldest Egyptian wishes, life joined to dominion, and the pairing carried protective force for a wearer in life and in the tomb alike. Miniature in scale, and an uncommon combination of the two signs in a single wearable amulet. The ankh functioned first as a hieroglyph, writing the words "live", "alive", and "life", before becoming the general emblem of vitality carried by gods and offered to the nostrils of kings in temple relief. The was scepter, a straight staff with forked foot and animal-headed crook, signified power and dominion and was borne by deities including Set and Anubis; it doubled as the hieroglyph for "dominion" and, in later theological readings, as the instrument by which the chaos Set embodied was held in check. The animal head has also been read as Khnum. Egyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica with alkali fluxes and copper compounds that migrate to the surface during firing and vitrify into the blue-green skin the Egyptians called tjehenet, "that which is dazzling", prized as a sympathetic substitute for turquoise and lapis. Item # 73362

Lot: 464 - Egyptian Amarna Blue Faience Hieroglyph Inlays, Group of Ten

Egypt, New Kingdom, Amarna period. A set of ten hieroglyphic inlays in brilliant turquoise-blue glazed faience, each a crisply cut sign shape: chevrons, a T-form, teardrops, arcs and a stepped element, their edges beveled for tight seating in a carved matrix. Elements of this kind were bedded into wall, furniture, shrine or coffin surfaces to spell royal and divine names in permanent color, the copper-rich glaze imitating turquoise at a fraction of its cost. Faience workshops of the New Kingdom produced such components in molds and by hand-cutting, glazing them by efflorescence so the sign emerged already sheathed in glass. Mounted with beeswax on a black lucite display stand. Egyptian faience is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste: ground silica bound with natron and lime and colored with copper compounds, which migrate to the surface during drying and fuse into a glassy skin in the kiln. The Egyptians called it tjehenet, "that which shines," and prized it as a manufactured stand-in for turquoise and lapis, materials charged with associations of rebirth and solar light. The Amarna horizon, the short-lived court of Akhenaten at Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna), saw an extraordinary expansion of inlay technique. Architectural surfaces, balustrades, shrines and furniture were composed from thousands of individually cut faience and stone elements, an approach that let workshops assemble polychrome texts and figural scenes at speed. Fragments of exactly this character, single strokes and sign components divorced from their sentence, are the most common survival from those dismantled surfaces. Item # 73363

Lot: 465 - Egyptian Faience Amulet Group, Horus Hawk, Thoth Baboon & Winged Scarab Wing (5)

North Africa, Egypt, Middle to Late Period. A group of five small Egyptian amulets and one workshop implement. A blue glazed faience wing, pierced for attachment, comes from a composite winged scarab pectoral, its feather registers picked out in ocher and red-brown. Beside it sits a crisply modeled hawk amulet in rich blue faience, the falcon form of Horus, and a deep blue-green glass paste baboon squatting on a low plinth, the animal manifestation of Thoth. A metal uraeus amulet rears with its suspension loop intact, while a coarse pottery mold preserves the sunken matrix for a multiple uzat eye, tooling of the amulet-maker rather than the wearer. Glass examples of this scale and color are uncommon. Thoth, god of writing, reckoning, and the intellectual arts, was attached to two animals, the ibis and the baboon. He appears variously as a man with an ibis head, as the bird itself, or, as here, in the seated baboon form whose dawn cries the Egyptians read as worship of the rising sun. The uraeus, the rearing cobra of Wadjet, guarded the brow of the king and, in amuletic miniature, the body of the deceased. The uzat (wedjat) eye, restored eye of Horus, was the commonest protective sign of all; the pottery mold in this group is a rare survival of the manufacturing chain behind such amulets, allowing a workshop to press out identical faience plaques in quantity for burial equipment and for the living market alike. Item # 73364

Lot: 466 - Egyptian Faience Senet Game Pieces, New Kingdom, Group of 16

North Africa, Egypt, New Kingdom, 19th to 20th Dynasty. A group of sixteen faience gaming pieces glazed in the luminous blue-green of Egyptian craft, eight tall and eight short, each rising from a flaring conical base to a slender neck capped by a domed, phallic finial. The two heights distinguish the opposing sides in senet, the race game of thirty squares played across dynastic Egypt. Faience here is not clay but a self-glazing quartz paste, the alkaline mixture effloresced and fired to a glassy copper-tinted skin. Small and portable, such pawns served both the living player and the tomb, senet boards and their pieces being placed with the dead so the game could be continued in the hereafter. Senet ("passing") is among the oldest board games known, attested from the Predynastic period and depicted in tomb painting from the Old Kingdom onward. Play ran along thirty squares in three rows of ten, movement decided by throwsticks or knucklebones rather than dice. By the New Kingdom the game had acquired an explicitly funerary theology: Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead shows the deceased at the senet board, competing against an unseen opponent for safe passage through the Duat. The board's final squares were mapped to stages of that journey, so a winning throw carried the soul toward rebirth. Nefertari's tomb preserves the most celebrated image of the pastime, and Tutankhamun was buried with four sets. Egyptian faience owed its color to copper compounds in the alkaline glaze; the blue-green range was prized for its association with Nile water, fertility, and regeneration, making it the natural material for objects intended to accompany the dead. Item # 73365

Lot: 467 - Egyptian Late Period Steatite Scarab in 1920s Gold Ring

Egypt, Late Period; setting European, 20th C. A carved steatite scarab of bluish-cream tone, its dorsal plate crisply modeled with clypeus, prothorax, and folded elytra, the surface softened by a warm earthen patina. The beetle is set as the bezel of a custom gold finger ring, framed by a twisted rope border and flanked at the shoulders by granulated floral rosettes. In Egyptian belief the scarab embodied Khepri, the sun reborn at dawn, and such amulets were worn in life and carried into the tomb as guarantors of renewal. XRF analysis of the modern setting reports 17.9K gold, 74.75% gold, 11.75% copper, 1% zinc. Scarabs are the most abundant class of Egyptian amulet, produced in glazed steatite, faience, and hardstone from the Middle Kingdom onward. The form derives from Scarabaeus sacer, the dung beetle whose habit of rolling a ball of dung across the ground was read as a terrestrial mirror of the sun's daily passage. The god Khepri, whose name shares a root with the verb "to come into being", was imagined pushing the solar disc over the horizon each morning, and the amulet accordingly promised transformation and continued existence. Mounting ancient scarabs into contemporary jewelry was a fashion of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Egyptomania swept European and American taste and finds circulated freely through Cairo's antiquities dealers. The rope-twist bezel and granulated rosette shoulders here are deliberate archaizing gestures, borrowing an Etruscan and Hellenistic goldsmithing vocabulary revived by Castellani and his imitators. Item # 73366

Lot: 468 - Egyptian Hardstone Scarab in Custom Kiosk-Form Brooch

Egypt, Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate period (scarab); mount modern. A dark hardstone scarab set within a miniature temple front of gold, its papyriform columns supporting a cavetto cornice crowned by a palmette crest, with scrolling openwork below and an integral pin fitted to the reverse. The beetle is modeled with crisp elytra and clypeus; its flat underside carries a symmetrical arrangement of hieroglyphic signs chosen for auspicious meaning rather than to spell words. Such design scarabs served as seals and amulets at once, worn or bezel-mounted, invoking Khepri, the sun reborn each dawn from the dung beetle's rolled sphere. The goldsmith's frame is a modern conceit, engraved and assembled with care, that presents the ancient stone as though enshrined. Design scarabs bearing non-lexical but auspicious sign groupings are, per the Metropolitan Museum of Art, particularly prevalent in the late Middle Kingdom (late Dynasty 12 to Dynasty 13, ca. 1850 to 1640 BCE), and they supply the models for the wide range of variations found on Egyptian scarabs of the Second Intermediate Period (Dynasties 14 to 17, ca. 1640 to 1550 BCE) and on Canaanite scarabs of Middle Bronze Age IIB to IIC (ca. 1700 to 1500 BCE).\n\nThe mount answers the Egyptian Revival taste that swept European and American jewelry from the nineteenth century onward and surged again after 1922: a scarab framed as a shrine, complete with lotiform capitals and cavetto cornice, is the vocabulary of the pylon translated into wearable scale. XRF analysis of the setting returned 18.3K gold (76.6 percent gold, 4.4 percent silver, 18.85 percent copper, 0.2 percent germanium). Item # 73367

Lot: 469 - Egyptian Steatite Scarab Thoth Iconography, ex-Mitry

North Africa, Egypt, New Kingdom. A carved steatite scarab, with the dorsal surface modeled in the form of the sacred dung beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, the clypeus, prothorax, and elytra delineated by incised lines, and the legs folded along the base. Traces of blue-green glaze remain on the stone. The flat underside carries an engraved motif that appears to show a seated figure, possibly a baboon associated with Thoth, above a basket or bowl sign. The scarab is associated with Khepri, the self-created sun god reborn each dawn, and was worn in life and placed with the dead as an amuletic symbol of rebirth. The scarab beetle, observed rolling dung across the ground, became a metaphor for Khepri pushing the sun through the sky and a symbol of resurrection. Thoth, the ibis- and baboon-headed god of writing and wisdom, presided over the judgment of the dead, recording the verdict as the heart was weighed against the feather of Maat. The baboon was sacred to him and often shown near the scales. The basket sign (the hieroglyph neb, meaning "lord" or "all") frequently appears at the base of such amulets as an epithet. Item # 204145

Lot: 470 - Phoenician Steatite Scarab with Winged Deity, ex-Mitry

Eastern Mediterranean, Phoenician. A steatite scarab carved, the base engraved with a winged figure in profile, seated on a long-snouted animal with one hand placed at its neck. The scene is flanked by two outward-facing Eye of Horus (wedjat) motifs. Beneath the animal is the nb (basket) sign, used as a groundline in this type of composition. The figure wears a crown resembling the double crown (pschent), with plumes or streamers rising above, and the wings extend to a single side, a treatment associated with Phoenician workshop conventions of the period. Phoenician seal cutters adopted the scarab from Egypt around the start of the first millennium BCE and applied Egyptian motifs freely, combining wedjat eyes, baskets, and crowns with figures unfamiliar to Nile Valley iconography. The winged rider belongs to this adaptive tradition, related to winged Levantine storm gods that Egyptian artisans associated with Seth. The animal beneath him, with its elongated muzzle, has been compared to an aardvark, okapi, or tapir, without scholarly consensus, and the composition is likely a local invention. Objects of this kind served a dual function: pressed into clay, the base sealed jars, doors, or contracts in place of a signature; strung and worn, the scarab form was associated with regeneration, drawing on the observation of the dung beetle rolling its ball as an image of the sun's daily passage. Scarabs of this type circulated along Phoenician trade networks reaching Cyprus, Carthage, and Sardinia. Item # 204146

Lot: 471 - Egyptian Faience Scarab, Khepri Symbolism, ex-Mitry

Egypt, Late Dynastic period. A faience scarab glazed in turquoise, with the dorsal surface carved in relief. The clypeus is notched, the legs rendered with feathering tucked beneath the body, and the elytra swept with paired spiral motifs echoed across the thorax. Three incised lines run down the wing case, dividing the elytra with crisp symmetry. The flat underside carries an engraved design arranged around two cartouches: one framing a rectangle, an ankh, and twin feathers, the other a horizontal bar, a coiled form, a recumbent lion, and a bird. Flanking devices, a disc, a goose, a plant, and a bee, complete the composition. Sacred to Khepri, god of the rising sun and self-renewal, the scarab was worn and interred as an amulet of rebirth and enduring life. The dung beetle, which rolls its egg-ball across the ground, was read by the Egyptians as a terrestrial mirror of the sun's daily passage: the god Khepri ("he who comes into being") pushing the solar disc up from the eastern horizon. The verb kheper, "to come into being," gave the scarab its amuletic force as a guarantor of transformation and resurrection. The flanking motifs on this specimen belong to the standard Late Period repertoire of auspicious hieroglyphs: the goose (associated with Amun and with the sun-egg), the bee (a royal emblem of Lower Egypt), the plant, and the disc all functioning less as a readable text than as a cluster of protective and regenerative signs. Such symbolic, pseudo-inscriptional arrangements are typical of amuletic scarabs of the Saite and later dynasties, when the form proliferated as funerary and personal talismans. Item # 204144

Lot: 472 - Egyptian Glazed Steatite Scarab in Gold Bezel, ex-Mitry

North Africa, Egypt, Middle Kingdom. A scarab of glazed steatite, the surface with a mottled turquoise and pale grey patina, set in an ancient gold bezel that grips the bead at its pierced axis. The dung beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, was associated in Egyptian belief with renewal, its habit of rolling a ball of earth read as an image of the sun god propelling the solar disk across the sky. Scarabs of this type were worn as protective amulets associated with rebirth. The gold mount assays at approximately 69.5% gold content (about 16.7 karat), and the piece was likely worn as a pendant or the swivel bezel of a finger ring. Item # 204147

Lot: 473 - Egyptian Late Period Large Carved Wood Mummy Mask with Tripartite Wig

Egypt, Late Period. An over life-size funerary face carved from a single block of wood, the serene countenance modeled with lidded almond eyes beneath arched brows, a straight naturalistic nose, and a small closed mouth. A banded tripartite wig frames the temples and sweeps across the brow, its lappets descending at either cheek. The surface carries a black resinous coating of bitumen type, the darkened flesh evoking Osiris and the fertile silt of the inundation, while the exposed wood beneath glows warm ochre. Such masks were pegged or doweled to the lid of an anthropoid coffin, giving the deceased an idealized, incorruptible face through which the ba could recognize its owner. Mounted on an older lucite display base. Wooden coffin faces of this scale belong to the great Late Period revival of funerary craft, when Saite and later workshops looked back to Old and Middle Kingdom models for their calm, symmetrical idealization. The mask was carved separately from the coffin lid and secured with wooden dowels; the peg holes visible on the hollowed reverse are the practical residue of that joinery. Black was not a color of mourning in Egypt. Kemet, "the Black Land," named the country itself after the dark alluvium the Nile left behind each year, and Osiris, lord of the dead and of regeneration, was rendered with black or green flesh precisely because those hues promised renewal. Coatings of bitumen and resinous pitch applied to coffin faces and mummies carried that association, sealing the wood while wrapping the deceased in the god's own resurrective color. Item # 73368

Lot: 474 - Coptic Wooden Weaver's Comb with Owner's Mark, 5th C. Egypt

Egypt, Coptic. A weaver's beating comb built from three joined wooden panels, its broad rectangular head cut into a dense row of slender teeth and dropping to a long tapered handle worn smooth by the grip of use. One face carries five small ring-and-dot roundels ranged along the lower edge, and above them a boldly incised owner's mark, angular and monogram-like, cut deep enough to survive centuries of handling. Combs of this form were swung against the loom to pack each pass of weft tight against the finished cloth, and the tool's mass and long grip suit exactly that percussive work. The mark identifies the weaver or the workshop, a practical claim of ownership on an implement that would have been in daily service. Deep brown surface throughout, with warm reddish tone on the wood. Coptic Egypt was one of the great textile producers of the late antique Mediterranean, and the tunics, hangings, and tapestry-woven roundels recovered from its cemeteries survive in the tens of thousands. The tools that made them survive far less often. The dry conditions of Middle and Upper Egypt preserved wooden loom furniture that would have rotted anywhere else, which is why beating combs of this type are known almost exclusively from Egyptian contexts.\n\nThe ring-and-dot motif punched along the lower register is among the most durable decorative devices in the ancient world, cut with a simple centred bit and used on wood, bone, and ivory from Pharaonic times through the Islamic period. Here it reads as workshop ornament rather than iconography. The incised mark is a different matter: such personal marks appear on Coptic weaving implements and textiles alike, and functioned as signatures of hand and shop in an industry where several weavers might share a single loom room. Item # 73369

Lot: 475 - Egyptian Faience Bastet Amulet with Kittens, ex-Mitry

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period. A glazed composition amulet depicting the goddess Bastet in feline form, seated upright on an integral plinth, tail curled along one flank. A mane detail appears about the head and throat. A row of kittens is modeled at the forepaws. The piece is pierced for suspension. Amulets of this type were associated with Bastet's role as protector of the home, women, and childbirth, and with fertility symbolism through the depicted kittens. Item # 204149

Lot: 476 - Egyptian Bronze Figure of Nephthys, ex-Christie’s

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period. A solid-cast bronze figure of Nephthys, "Mistress of the House," standing with feet together and arms at her sides. The figure wears a close-fitting dress, with a tripartite wig framing the face, fronted by a uraeus, and a modius ringed with cobras on the head. The figure rises from an integral rectangular plinth, with a green cuprite and malachite patina. Bronzes of this type were dedicated in temple precincts as votive offerings. The piece is mounted on a vintage wooden base with a gilt label identifying the figure as "Nephthys, Sister of Isis." Nephthys (Egyptian Nebet-hut, "Lady of the Mansion") was the youngest of the four children of Geb and Nut, sister to Isis, Osiris, and Seth, and conventionally the wife of Seth. Despite that union she stands among the faithful: with Isis she mourns and protects the murdered Osiris, and the two sisters recur as guardian figures at the head and foot of the coffin and canopic shrine, their outstretched wings sheltering the dead. Her name is written with the hieroglyph of a basket over a house-enclosure, the emblem she wears as a headdress and the origin of her epithet. Bronze votive statuettes of this type proliferated during the Late and Ptolemaic periods, produced by the lost-wax method and deposited in the thousands at temple sites as intermediaries between worshipper and deity. Reference: Andrews, Carol, 1994. "Amulets of Ancient Egypt." Austin: University of Texas. 19. Pinch, Geraldine, 2002. "Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt." Oxford: Oxford University Press. 171-2. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204235

Lot: 477 - Egyptian Middle Kingdom Bronze Short Sword / Dagger

Egypt, Middle Kingdom, 11th to 13th Dynasties, ca. 2055 to 1650 BCE. An Egyptian bronze short sword or dagger, preserved in its essential form, reflecting the metallurgy and layered construction methods of Middle Kingdom weapons. The blade is long and tapering, cast in bronze and narrowing to a point, with a faceted profile. The surface displays a variegated patina of deep green with reddish and brown undertones, formed through burial and oxidation. The blade transitions into the upper section, which represents the bronze tang rather than a complete hilt. Size: 13.5" L x 2.3" W (34.3 cm x 5.8 cm) Item # 200953

Lot: 478 - Egyptian Late Period Inlaid Sarcophagus Eyes with Brows, Pair

Egypt, Late Period. A pair of large inlaid eyes with their matching arched brows, cast in metal now cloaked in green and red-brown corrosion. Each almond-shaped socket cradles a sclera of white glass or polished ground limestone, set with a domed black glass iris that still catches the light. The tapering cosmetic line at each outer canthus extends the eye in the manner of painted Egyptian portraiture, while the separately made brows arch above in slender rods. Such inlays were fitted into the face of a coffin, mummy mask, or composite statue, animating the image so the deceased could see, breathe, and receive offerings in the afterlife. Mounted on a brushed plexiglass display base. Inlaid eyes were among the most technically demanding elements of Egyptian funerary sculpture, assembled from several materials by specialist craftsmen and set into recesses prepared in wood, cartonnage, or metal. The practice reaches back to the Old Kingdom, where quartz and rock crystal eyes gave royal statuary its unsettling lifelike gaze, and it persists through the Late Period on coffins and votive bronzes.\n\nThe function was theological rather than decorative. The Opening of the Mouth ritual reanimated the senses of the deceased, and an image equipped with true eyes could serve as a receptacle for the ba. Eyes also invoked the wedjat, the healed eye of Horus, a guarantor of wholeness and protection. Detached from their support, such sets survive far more often than the perishable faces that once held them. Item # 73370

Lot: 479 - Egyptian Miniature Wepwawet Jackal on Sled, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period. A miniature cast jackal strides forward on an integral sled, its long tapered muzzle levelled and its tall pointed ears alert. The canine body is lean and long-legged, the tail hanging straight, the neck encircled by a lightly incised collar. Surfaces carry a deep greenish-brown patina broken by warm cuprite red. The sled runner identifies the animal as a processional image, the form in which Wepwawet, "Opener of the Ways", was drawn at the head of festival cortges, and the same jackal shape served Anubis as guardian of the necropolis. Such small votive figures were dedicated in temple and tomb contexts, likely fixed originally to a larger shrine or coffin fitting. Mounted on an old black wooden display block. Wepwawet and Anubis share a canine body but not a role. Wepwawet, whose name means "Opener of the Ways", was a martial deity of Asyut (Greek Lycopolis) whose standard preceded the king into battle and led the Osirian processions at Abydos; his standing image on a sled or standard is his diagnostic form. Anubis, by contrast, is most often shown recumbent atop a shrine or pylon, the vigilant guardian of the embalming house. The sled beneath this figure belongs squarely to the standard-borne tradition, which favors the Wepwawet identification, though the two gods were increasingly conflated by the Late Period and Egyptian craftsmen were untroubled by the overlap. The Late Period saw an enormous expansion in small bronze votives, produced by lost-wax casting in temple workshops and dedicated by pilgrims in their thousands. Many were made with tangs or flat bases for attachment to wooden shrines, sacred barques, or coffin lids, and survive today separated from those fittings. Item # 73371

Lot: 480 - Ptolemaic-Roman Egyptian Bronze Figure, Harpocrates

North Africa, Egypt, Ptolemaic to Roman period. A cast leaded-bronze figure of Harpocrates, the youthful form of Horus the child, standing nude with the left leg advanced. One hand is raised toward the mouth, the finger-to-lips gesture associated with the god's iconography, a motif understood in antiquity as a sign of infancy, and later reinterpreted, incorrectly, as a gesture for silence. The head carries the plaited sidelock of youth falling along one shoulder, a marker of divine childhood in Egyptian iconography. The surface carries a mottled green and earthen patina consistent with burial. Bronzes of this type were kept in household shrines or carried as protective amulets, associated with the child god's role in healing, fertility, and protection. Please note that this figure contains over 31% lead. Item # 203695

Lot: 481 - Egyptian Bronze Osiris Statuette, ca. 664–30 BCE

Egypt, Late Dynastic to Ptolemaic Period. A cast leaded copper-alloy statuette of Osiris, lord of the underworld, shown in the close-fitting mummiform garment associated with the god. He wears the tall atef crown, its plumes flanking a central boss, set above ram's horns and surmounted by a solar disk. The face is modeled with raised brows and heavy eyelids. From slits in the wrappings, the bangled hands emerge to grasp the crook and flail, held in the customary asymmetrical pose. A shallow ridge rises along the back of the neck, a recurring feature of the garment. Statuettes of this type were dedicated in large numbers in temples and shrines as votive offerings, associated with the god's role over death and rebirth. Item # 203696

Lot: 482 - Egyptian Faience Openwork Bes Face Plaque, ex-Mitry

North Africa, Egypt, Third Intermediate Period. A glazed composition plaque, cast in openwork, depicting the face of the dwarf-god Bes framed within a cushion-shaped, beaded border. The features, including bulging eyes, flattened nose, protruding tongue, and beard, are modeled in relief, with a feathered crown rising above the brow, pierced through on either side to form the openwork silhouette. Traces of turquoise glaze remain in the recesses, and black bitumen residue darkens the mane and crown. The plaque is bored horizontally for suspension. Bes was associated in Egyptian belief with protection of the household, women in childbirth, sleepers, and children, with his imagery understood as an apotropaic device intended to ward off malign forces. Please note that an Egyptian faience amulet of the same form and size hammered 4,375 British pounds on 14 April 2011 (now equivalent to $10,623.28) at Christie's London (South Kensington) as lot 83 in Live Auction 6060 "Antiquities." Item # 204168

Lot: 483 - Egyptian Serpentine Openwork Pectoral Plaque with Hathor, Late Period

Egypt, Late Period. A small pectoral plaque cut from black serpentine and pierced clean through, so the goddess sits inside her own window. Hathor kneels in profile, one arm raised, crowned with a sun disc flanked by two rearing uraei; a lotus blossom opens at the lower right. A hatched band runs along the top and bottom rails of the integral frame, and two lugs rise from the upper edge for suspension, confirming the piece was worn on the chest rather than set. Hathor governed love, beauty, music, dance, fertility, and pleasure, and protected women, though men worshipped her equally. Such amuletic pectorals were likely worn in life and carried into the tomb as divine protection. Hathor's temples were unusual in Egyptian religion for maintaining both priestesses and priests, and her cult at Dendera drew pilgrims across the Nile valley. The sun disc between horns is her defining crown, marking her as daughter and eye of Re; the paired uraei that flank it here double the protective charge, each cobra a guardian spitting fire at the wearer's enemies. The lotus at the goddess's side belongs to the same vocabulary of renewal, opening at dawn and closing at dusk, and in funerary contexts it stood for rebirth. Openwork stone plaques of this scale are considerably scarcer than the moulded faience amulets that dominate Late Period production, and the pierced technique demanded a lapidary willing to risk the whole blank on a single slip of the drill. Item # 73372

Lot: 484 - Persian Copper Griffin Plaque | Iron Age, Achaemenid Period

Near East / Greek cultures, Iran (Persia), Iron Age II, Hasanlu Period IV to Achaemenid Empire, ca. 1150 to 300 BCE. A rectangular copper repoussé plaque depicting a griffin in profile, shown with an open beak, raised ears, and the upper portions of feathered wings rendered in relief. Four corner perforations suggest the plaque was once affixed to furniture, a ceremonial or funerary object, or possibly a chariot fitting. The griffin motif appears in both Greek and Achaemenid art, reflecting artistic exchange along trade and imperial routes linking Persia, Anatolia, and the wider Hellenic world. Size: 4.75" L x 3" W (12.1 cm x 7.6 cm) Item # 199187

Lot: 485 - Persian Achaemenid Bronze Phiale, Gadrooned Lobes

Near East, Persia, Achaemenid Empire. Near East, Persia (Iran), Achaemenid Empire, ca. [date needed]. A shallow drinking bowl, or phiale, raised from leaded bronze, with walls chased with a register of teardrop lobes. The repoussé ornament is worked from within, and the surface carries a green and cuprite-red patina consistent with burial. Bowls of this type served as drinking and libation vessels at the Achaemenid court and in ritual offering contexts. The lobed, gadrooned form reflects metalwork traditions circulated across the empire, from Anatolia to the Iranian plateau. Item # 204057

Lot: 486 - 12th C. Persian Turquoise-Glazed Carved Fritware Dish

Seljuk Turquoise Glazed Fritware Dish, Persia. A shallow dish rising from a low foot to an everted rim, the stonepaste body covered in a turquoise alkaline glaze that pools to a deeper teal in the well. The interior is incised and carved beneath the glaze with scrolling vegetal arabesques, tendrils, palmettes, and split-leaf forms spiraling inward from a banded border toward the center. Where the glaze thins over raised contours, the underlying carving is visible through variation in glaze depth, a characteristic of medieval Persian monochrome wares. The copper-derived turquoise glaze was widely used across the Islamic east and is associated with fritware production of this type. Item # 203889

Lot: 487 - Indo-Persian Char-Aina Armor Set, Gilt Decoration

Central Asia, Persia/Northern India, Mughal or Indo-Persian culture, ca. 19th century CE. Iron chahar-ayneh (char-aina) cuirass armor with matching bazu (dastana) arm guards and original chainmail, decorated throughout with gold and silver gilt work. The cuirass comprises a breast and back plate and side plates with curved tops for the wearer's arms, each secured by buckles for leather straps. The arm guards fully cover the outer forearm, with a shorter inside plate to allow elbow movement, and chainmail mitten-form gauntlets attached at the wrists for hand and thumb dexterity. The plates and arm guards are decorated with intricate foliate arabesque motifs in gilt silver and gold. Size: 19.5" L x 14" W (49.5 cm x 35.6 cm); 23.5" H (59.7 cm) on included custom stand; breastplate: 12" L x 8.75" W (30.5 cm x 22.2 cm); gold quality: 22.54–22.79%. Chahar-ayneh armor was used in Asia, India, and central Asia and originated from the Chinese use of bronze discs as mirrors, which happened to be strong enough to be used as pectoral plates. In the Persian and Mughal period empire these pieces not only physically but spiritually protected the wearer with inscriptions from the Quran inscribed on the surface. The plates on the torso are not form fitting and are usually worn over a hauberk chainmail tunic or with padding for added protection. For a similar example and more information please see the Harvard Art Museum's website, object number: 1959.201B. Item # 170441

Lot: 488 - Persian Qajar Molded Relief Tile with Falconer on a White Horse

Near East, Persia, Qajar dynasty. A falconer rides out across a cobalt ground, his hooded bird perched on a gauntleted fist, in this large molded and polychrome-glazed earthenware tile. The rider wears a plumed turban and a spotted robe; his white horse, bridled and caparisoned in a lattice-patterned saddlecloth, steps through a field of turquoise-leaved rosettes and lotus blossoms. Two domed, cross-topped chapels and rows of purple hills fill the background, and a molded upper border carries confronted birds among flowering scrolls. Tiles of this type were set in registers across the walls of palaces, garden pavilions, and townhouses, where relief modeling caught raking light and gave the courtly hunt a sculptural presence. Mounted in a custom wooden box frame. Molded relief tiles of this kind belong to a long Persian tradition of figural architectural revetment, worked in a soft earthenware body under a thick alkaline glaze in cobalt, turquoise, manganese purple, and white. The falconer is one of the standard courtly subjects, alongside the hunt, the polo match, and the garden gathering, and it descends from the princely imagery of Safavid painting into the more theatrical relief tilework of the later period. The two churches in the upper corners are worth pausing over. Their conical drums, cross finials, and hillside setting point to Armenian Christian architecture, and their inclusion suggests a workshop or patron in one of the mixed communities of the Persian northwest or the Armenian quarter of New Julfa at Isfahan, where Christian subjects and motifs entered the local decorative vocabulary. Examples of objects from The McFadden Collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, and elsewhere in the United States and abroad. Drexel is currently hosting the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73373

Lot: 489 - Persian Qajar Molded Tile with Falconer on a White Horse

Near East, Persia, Qajar period. A young falconer rides out across a cobalt world in low relief, his hooded bird perched on a gloved fist raised against the sky. The molded earthenware panel is glazed in polychrome, turquoise, white, manganese and pale rose over a deep blue ground, the rider's long striped coat and plumed turban rendered in fine dark outline. His white horse steps through a meadow of stylized daisies and lotus palmettes; domed and steepled buildings sit on hillocks in the upper corners beneath a scatter of conical peaks. A separate register above carries confronted birds among scrolling blossoms. Such figural panels were set into the walls and iwans of palaces, garden pavilions and bathhouses. Royal falconry was among the oldest emblems of Persian princely leisure, a motif carried from Sasanian silver through Safavid painting and into the tilework of the later court. By the Qajar era the mounted falconer had become a stock figure of the bazm (feast and pleasure) repertoire, produced in molded relief panels for palace and pavilion revetments alongside hunt scenes, cypress gardens, and lovers in garden settings. The architecture in the upper field, with its onion dome and spired towers, is characteristic of the loosely observed European and Armenian building types that entered Persian tile painting through prints and Isfahani contact with Christian communities at New Julfa. Examples from the McFadden Collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, among other venues in the United States and abroad. Drexel is currently hosting the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73374

Lot: 490 - Pair Persian Koftgari Iron Bud Vases, Gold Damascened

Central Asia / Near East, Persia (Iran) / Northwestern India, ca. late 19th to 20th century CE. A pair of iron koftgari bud vases in matching bulbous forms rising to slender necks, with engraved arabesque patterns across the surface and gold-painted motifs accenting the shoulders. Size: 2" W x 4" H (5.1 cm x 10.2 cm); gold quality: 12% to 22% Item # 199437

Lot: 491 - Viking Zoomorphic Appliques with Bird & Stag, Pair, 10th-14th C.

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A pair of cast copper-alloy appliques, each reduced to a single crisp animal silhouette. The first is a crested bird, likely a rooster or eagle, its wing marked by incised feather grooves and its body pierced beneath the breast. The second is a long-necked deer with alert ears, the legs folded into a rectangular openwork void that lightens the plaque and frames the mount. Both are flat-backed and were fixed as decorative fittings, perhaps to harness, casket, or belt gear. Deep brown patinas. Mounted together on a custom wood and plexiglas display base. Animal ornament is the backbone of Norse decorative metalwork, and by the later Viking Age its gripping beasts and interlaced serpents had begun to give way to plainer, more legible creatures of the kind seen here. Birds carried particular weight in the Northern imagination: the raven pair Huginn and Muninn attended Odin, while the cockerel Gullinkambi was said to crow at Valhalla to wake the einherjar at Ragnarok. The deer likewise belongs to a rich stock of imagery, four harts browsing the branches of Yggdrasil among them. Whether these small fittings were read as myth or simply as handsome beasts is unrecoverable, but their makers worked within a vocabulary in which animals were rarely only animals. Item # 73375

Lot: 492 - Viking Harness Fitting with Anthropomorphic Warrior Figure, 11th-14th C.

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A cast copper-alloy strap fitting shrunk to the size of a thumb, its plate modeled as a frontal human figure with a broad squared head, ridged shoulders and arms drawn in over the chest, and legs folded beneath. Openwork piercings flank the torso, and squared loops at crown and hem carried the leather. The rippled treatment across the shoulders and chest likely renders mail or a padded war-coat, marking the wearer as a warrior. Fittings of this kind dressed harness and belt straps, where a small human effigy served as ornament and perhaps as apotropaic guard. The reverse is left plain and flat, worked only where it would be seen. Figural strap mounts occupy a curious place in Norse metalwork: most Viking-age ornament prefers interlaced beasts and gripping tendrils to the human body, and the frontal, foursquare little man belongs instead to a minority tradition that runs from the Gotlandic guldgubbar foils through the small cast figures of the late Viking and early medieval centuries. Such mounts were produced in quantity by lost-wax and open-mould casting, then finished by hand, which accounts for the softness of the facial features against the crisp geometry of the loops. Mounted on horse harness they would have swung and caught the light with the animal's movement, an economical way for a rider of modest means to advertise status. The dating span offered here is broad because the type persists across the transition from pagan to Christian Scandinavia, and closely comparable mounts are known from both horizons. Item # 73376

Lot: 493 - Viking Horse and Rider Appliqué Plaque, Ca. 1000-1400 CE

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A miniature cast openwork appliqué in the form of a horse and rider in profile, the sturdy pony striding forward with head lowered, mane rendered in fine incised strokes, its haunch and shoulder marked by combed linear detail. The small helmeted rider sits high on the back, arms folded across a rounded torso. Beneath the hooves runs a scrolling tendril groundline that doubles as a mounting flange. Flat-backed and pierced through the body, the plaque was made to be fixed to a leather strap, harness, casket, or garment as a decorative mount. Cast in a copper alloy with a deep brown surface. Horses carried heavy prestige in the Norse world, and equestrian mounts of this type advertised the standing of their owner. The horse of the Norse North was the Icelandic type, a compact and famously hardy breed carried to the island by Norse settlers in the ninth and tenth centuries and thereafter kept genetically isolated. Small but powerfully built, it endures cold and broken ground that would defeat larger stock, and it retains five gaits rather than the usual three: walk, trot, canter, tolt, and the flying pace, the last two prized for their smoothness over long distances. Sagas and law codes treat horses as measures of wealth, as sacrificial animals, and as combatants in the staged horse-fights that punctuated assembly gatherings, which helps explain why the mounted rider recurs so persistently in small-scale Norse and later medieval Scandinavian metalwork. Mounted in a custom wood and plexiglas display base. Item # 73377

Lot: 494 - 19th C. Spanish Matador's Sword, Estoque de Torero

Western Europe, Spain. A matador's sword, or estoque de torero, forged for the culminating act of the corrida, the estocada. The slender iron blade, nearly a meter overall, tapers to a thrusting point and carries a maker's mark resembling a Ceres emblem alongside the etched initials "F.M.," likely a swordsmith's cipher. The cruciform guard curves gently, with quillon terminals capped in rounded knobs, and the grip is bound in wrapped cloth. The pommel is oxidized iron, and may originally have been fitted with a leather sheath. Item # 203315

Lot: 495 - 18th C. Spanish Cup-Hilt Rapier, Espada de Taza, Inscribed Blade

Iberia, Spanish or Spanish Colonial. A cup-hilt rapier of the Spanish form known as the espada de taza, with a hemispherical iron bowl guard above a straight, fluted double-edged blade. The turned wooden grip rises to a baluster pommel, flanked by straight quillons with acorn-turned finials and a knuckle-bow completing the guard. Each face of the blade carries an inscribed motto: "no me saques sin razon" (draw me not without reason) on one side, and "no me enbaines sin honor" (sheathe me not without honor) on the other. Worn maker's marks are present on the forte. Weapons of this type were carried by soldiers and gentlemen across Spain and its colonial territories. Item # 203310

Lot: 496 - 1776 Spanish Toledo Cavalry Sword, Carlos III, Real Fábrica

Western Europe, Spain, Toledo, reign of Carlos III. A Toledo cavalry sword mounted primarily in steel, with a brass-faced grip, of a type regulation for troop cavalry furniture. The blade is broad, straight, and three-faced to a point, inscribed with "POR EL REY CARLOS III" on one face and "CAVALLERIA T.o 1776" on the other, with the crowned mark of the Real Fábrica de Toledo struck near the forte. The mounting includes an iron shell guard known in Spanish as the boca de caballo, straight quillons with budded terminals, and a single knuckle bow rising to an urn-shaped pommel, the steel with an overall patina. Swords of this type were used by mounted regiments in Spanish colonial service during the reign of Charles III. Item # 203311

Lot: 497 - Viking Period Dagger with Griffin Pommel, 9th-11th C.

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A hand-forged dagger whose long, single-edged blade sweeps into a gently curved point, the hammered surface still carrying the texture of the smith's work. The broad flat tang rises through a riveted guard to a second riveted plate, above which a winged griffin stands in silhouette, cut from sheet and pierced with a single round opening at its belly. Head lowered, wing feathers scored in short parallel strokes, tail curling upward, the beast makes the pommel into a small piece of sculpture. Surfaces throughout carry a dark blackened patina. Such an ornamented sidearm was likely a personal weapon of status rather than a common utility blade, the griffin serving as an apotropaic guardian. The griffin, a composite of eagle and lion, traveled west along the trade and river routes that Scandinavian merchants and raiders worked between the Baltic, the Rus principalities, and Byzantium. Steppe and Near Eastern metalwork supplied the motif, and Norse smiths absorbed it readily into a visual vocabulary already crowded with beasts, serpents, and gripping animals. On weapon fittings such creatures were rarely decorative alone: the animal at the pommel guarded the hand that held the hilt.\n\nThe cut-sheet silhouette technique, with the figure pierced and riveted rather than cast in the round, is characteristic of workshop production along the eastern Viking corridor, where iron rather than precious metal carried the ornament. Item # 73378

Lot: 498 - Viking Period Short Sword with Leaf-Shape Blade and Rosette Grip

Eastern Steppes, Southern Europe. A broad leaf-shape blade of forged iron, double-edged and swelling to a wide belly before drawing to an acute point. Shallow fullers, the so-called blood grooves, run down both faces to lighten the blade without robbing it of mass. The short arched guard is beaded along its edge, the tang carries a rayed roundel like a small sun at mid-grip, and a rectangular pommel is set with a raised diamond boss on each side. Rich rust-brown surface throughout. The compact proportions suit close combat and a saddle or belt carry rather than the long slashing sword of the shield wall, and the ornamented fittings mark it as a weapon of some standing. Short, broad-bladed swords of this kind circulated widely across the corridor between the Pontic steppe and the Danube, where Norse traders and mercenaries on the Rus river routes met Magyar, Khazar, and Byzantine armourers. Decorative vocabulary travelled with them: the rayed roundel on the grip belongs to a solar idiom common across steppe metalwork, while the beaded guard and lozenge-set pommel recall Carpathian and Black Sea fittings. Hybrid weapons of this sort resist tidy national labels, which is precisely their interest, and the attribution here is best read as a cultural zone rather than a single workshop tradition. Item # 73379

Lot: 499 - Viking Period Forged Dagger with Volute Pommel Plates, 9th-11th C.

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A hand-forged single-edged dagger, its blade running straight from a heavy ricasso before sweeping upward to a lifted point. The forge surface is left dimpled and unpolished, a shallow fuller line incised along the spine. The full tang narrows into a finger-scalloped grip and terminates in a hooked, volute-form pommel faced with sheet plates of a yellow copper alloy, secured by a scatter of domed rivets of a reddish alloy. A matching strap band clasps the tang at the guard, riveted through in the same manner. A functional sidearm and utility knife, the applied plating a modest gesture of prestige on an otherwise workmanlike weapon. Single-edged knives of this general class, the seax family in northern Europe, were the near-universal sidearm of the Viking age: worn horizontally at the belt, used for eating, wood-working, butchery, and combat without distinction. Swords were the property of a narrow elite; the belt knife was carried by everyone, and it is the weapon most often recovered from Scandinavian and Baltic graves. The decorative logic here is characteristic of the wider period rather than of any one workshop: iron does the work, and the small applied elements in warmer-toned copper alloys carry the display. The chromatic contrast between a yellow sheet facing and red rivet heads is deliberate, a cheap and durable substitute for the inlay and pattern-welding reserved for higher-status blades. Item # 73380

Lot: 500 - Viking Age Bearded Battle Axe Head with Lugged Socket, 9th-11th C.

Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Viking culture. A hand forged axe head of classic bearded type, its broad blade sweeping down into a long drooping beard and flaring to a thin crescent edge. The body narrows through a strong neck to a socket eye framed by paired projecting lugs, cast shadows in every profile, which braced the haft against the shock of a downward blow. The forging is economical and confident: a flat cheek, a slightly thickened edge zone where a harder steel bit was welded in, and a lightly pitted mineral surface. Weapons of this pattern served warriors across the Norse world and its trade corridors, functioning equally as fighting arms and as markers of status; many were deposited in graves with their owners. The bearded axe (Old Norse skeggox) is one of the defining weapon forms of the Viking Age. Extending the lower blade into a hook lengthened the cutting edge without adding mass, keeping the head fast in the hand, and the beard could be used to pull a shield rim aside or hook an opponent's ankle. Lugs flanking the eye, as seen here, spread the impact load over a wider bearing surface and are typical of Petersen's earlier types. Axes were the common man's weapon throughout Scandinavia and the lands the Norse reached, from the Danelaw and Ireland to Rus river routes toward the Black Sea and the steppe. Swords required far more iron and a specialist smith; a good axe head could be made in a farmstead forge, which is why axes vastly outnumber blades in Viking Age grave assemblages. Item # 73381

Lot: 501 - Kievan Rus Iron Axe Head, Viking Period

Eastern Europe, Kievan Rus, Viking period. A forged iron axe head, its wide single-edged blade flaring into a broad bearded lower lug while a long, tapering pike sweeps back from the poll. The central socket is framed by upper and lower collars, the lower pierced for secure hafting to a wooden shaft. Centuries of burial have left the surface a mottled crust of oxidation, yet the striking silhouette survives intact. Such combination weapons, blade for cleaving and rear spike for piercing mail or unhorsing a rider, belonged to the militarized aristocracy of early Rus, a martial culture shaped equally by Norse (Varangian) river-raiders and the mounted nomads of the Pontic steppe. It likely accompanied a warrior of rank, perhaps deposited in a furnished grave. The Kievan Rus emerged in the 9th century as Scandinavian traders and warriors, the Varangians, established themselves along the river routes linking the Baltic to Byzantium and the Caspian. Their fusion with local Slavic populations and contact with Turkic steppe peoples produced a distinctive martial material culture in which Norse forms met nomadic tactics. Composite axes bearing both a cutting edge and a rearward pike answered the demands of mixed infantry and cavalry warfare, functioning as much as status markers as tools of battle. Weapons of this quality are recovered chiefly from richly furnished chamber graves, where they signalled the rank and prowess of the interred druzhina retainer. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. This item is a dropship lot and will ship directly from the consignor's location. All condition, dimension, material, and chemical composition data reflect consignor-supplied information. Item # 204236

Lot: 502 - Cybele in Lion-Drawn Chariot Relief Stele with Pan and Attendants

Eastern Mediterranean to Asia Minor. A carved stone panel in raised relief, its recessed field framed by a plain fillet border, presenting Cybele riding a two-wheeled chariot drawn by a pair of striding lions. The goddess grasps the reins and raises a pine-cone tipped staff; two draped attendants follow, one shouldering a second staff, the other carrying a ring or wreath. Before the team walks a goat-legged Pan, bearded and shaggy-flanked, brandishing a flaming torch and lifting a grape cluster toward a herm crowned with a youthful head, a small juglet incised on the plinth beside him. The chariot body carries a vine-leaf border. Assembled from several joined slabs and set in an old wooden frame, the composition likely served as a devotional or decorative panel in the classicizing taste. Cybele, the Phrygian mountain mother whose Greek and Roman worshippers knew her as Meter and Magna Mater, is almost always shown enthroned or driving between lions. Ovid's account makes the beasts Atalanta and Hippomenes, lovers transformed after profaning a sanctuary of the goddess and yoked forever to her car. Rome invited her cult in 205 BCE on the advice of the Sibylline books, during the second war against Carthage, and mythographers recast her as a Trojan ancestress of the Roman people through Aeneas. Her processions, her eunuch galli, and the ecstatic register of her rites were debated by ancient writers and remain contested in modern scholarship. The satyric torchbearer, the herm, the vine leaf and the juglet belong to the Dionysiac repertoire, and their pairing with Cybele reflects the long assimilation of the two thiasoi in Hellenistic and Roman art, a combination later revived with enthusiasm by post-Renaissance carvers working from antique models. Item # 73382

Lot: 503 - Malagan Frieze "Valik" by Gabriel Songis, Tabar Islands, New Ireland

Oceania, Papua New Guinea, New Ireland, Tabar Islands, Tatau Village, Malagan tradition. A long horizontal plank carved and painted in white, ochre, red and black, terminating at each end in a fish head seen in profile with an opercula shell eye. Two sculptural crayfish stride across the board, clan emblems of the sea and of ancestral abundance. At center a projecting portrait of the deceased fills a shallow concave frame, its broad face set with opercula eyes and tufts of fiber hair fixed in clay. Flanking discs, the "eyes of fire," float as detached ancestral gazes in lentoid mounts with tapered bases, rising from a painted ground of equal-armed crosses within circles. Carved by the master Gabriel Songis for display on the Malagan wall. Malagan friezes are mounted on a grass-covered wall raised inside a ceremonial enclosure, built in preparation for the Malagan cycle held roughly every second year. On those occasions the lives of the recently dead are honored and released, and the carvings themselves are examined, discussed, and critiqued by participants drawn from villages near and far, so that a carver's reputation rises or falls with the work. The Tabar Islands, off the northeast coast of New Ireland, are the acknowledged heartland of the tradition, and rights to particular motifs are owned, inherited, and licensed rather than freely copied. Gabriel Songis of Tatau Village worked within that system of ownership, and the crayfish and "eyes of fire" here belong to the specific visual vocabulary he was entitled to carve. Item # 73383

Lot: 504 - Sepik River Carved Wood Ancestor Figure Pole, Papua New Guinea

Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Middle Sepik River. A slender pole carved from a single length of wood, crowned by a female ancestral figure serving as finial. She raises her right arm to her chin, her nose ridge pierced for ornament, her broad face fixed in a wide smile above softly bent legs that lend the composition a rhythmic torsion. Incised chevrons across torso and limbs render scarification, animating the surface with shallow relief. Traces of the original palette survive: white kaolin, black, and red ochre worked into the grain. Such figural poles were raised within men's ceremonial houses and clan enclosures, where carved ancestors mediated between the living lineage and its founding spirits, their presence invoked at initiation and in the negotiation of clan prestige. Along the Middle Sepik, ancestral figures were not portraits but vessels: named spirits of a clan's founding line, addressed by name, fed, and consulted. Their carved presence concentrated in the haus tambaran, the men's ceremonial house, where posts, hooks, and finials populated the interior with a genealogy rendered in wood. The pigments carried meaning of their own. White kaolin belongs to the register of spirits and of mourning; red ochre to vitality and blood; black to the ancestral dead. Their application was periodically renewed, so a surviving polychrome surface records ritual attention as much as original manufacture. The raised hand at the chin is a recurrent Sepik gesture, variously read as mourning, speech, or contemplation, and the perforated septum reflects the shell and boar-tusk ornaments worn by men of standing in the region. Item # 73384

Lot: 505 - New Ireland Ges Dance Mask with Feathered Eye Wings, Libba Village

Oceania, Papua New Guinea, New Ireland, Libba Village. A helmet mask whose face all but disappears behind two enormous lentoid eyes, each a panel of mesh bark fiber stretched on a rattan frame and fringed with down feathers, their tapering arms sweeping upward and out into tasselled wands. Carved from softwood, the compact head carries a perpendicular, wing-like openwork nose rising between the eyes, a small pursed mouth below, and a chevron-painted collar in red ochre, black, and cream. Vegetable-fiber hair is bound over a rattan armature at the crown. Known as Ges, and sometimes as Pi, masks of this type were danced in a fertility ceremony held when the Kapiak, or breadfruit, feast was prepared. Northern New Ireland masking traditions are usually discussed through malagan and tatanua, the great carved memorial sculptures of the island's mortuary cycle. The Ges belongs to a different register: lighter, made largely of perishable bark fiber, feather, and rattan over a modest wooden core, and tied to horticultural increase rather than to the dead. Breadfruit ripening was a communal event of real consequence, and the dance that accompanied the Kapiak feast asked for abundance in the season ahead. The construction reflects that seasonal logic, since much of the mask is assembled fresh from garden and forest materials, which is why complete field-collected examples with their fiber eye-panels and feather wands intact are far less common than their carved counterparts. A copy of the receipt accompanies the lot. Item # 73385

Lot: 506 - Sepik River Praying Mantis Bush Spirit Figure, Papua New Guinea

Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Sepik River. A praying mantis rendered as a bush spirit, poised upright with a long tapering body, a small crowned head, and forelegs curving forward in a raptorial arc. Carved from a single piece of wood, the dorsal surface is deeply engraved with concentric ovoid and segmented motifs bordered by dentate sawtooth registers, the recesses picked out in white, red ochre, and yellow ochre pigment over a dark brown patina. Sepik carvers treated the mantis as a potent forest being, and figures of this kind were kept within men's ceremonial houses, likely serving as an abode or attractant for the spirit invoked in initiation and hunting rites. Accompanied by an ill fitted metal display base. Along the Sepik and its tributaries, the praying mantis belongs to the category of masalai, ancestral or place-bound bush spirits that inhabit swamp, forest, and waterway and must be courted rather than commanded. The insect's stillness before the strike made it an apt emblem of the ambush that governed both hunting and warfare, and its carved image was among the forms a spirit could be persuaded to enter. The curvilinear scroll-and-eye vocabulary incised across the back is the shared graphic language of Sepik carving, applied indifferently to canoe prows, suspension hooks, shields, and figures, so that a single design system binds the sacred objects of a men's house into one visual family. The tricolor palette of white lime, red ochre, and yellow ochre was refreshed periodically before ceremony; pigment renewal was itself a ritual act, reactivating an object that had gone dormant between uses. Item # 73386

Lot: 507 - Iatmul Bride Price Headdress "Ambusab" with Cowrie Shells and Boar Tusks

Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Middle Sepik River, Iatmul culture. A cascading bridal headdress of knotted plant fiber, worked in an openwork net that rises to a domed cap and falls into a long spinal train. Thousands of cowrie shells are stitched along every cord, with conus rings and disks set as rosettes and a pair of curved boar tusks flaring at the brow. Suspended strands terminate in shell pendants, and the tail closes with tassels of painted raffia and feathers. Known as an "ambusab", such regalia formed part of the bride price exchanged between Iatmul clans, where cowrie and conus functioned as currency as much as ornament, and the boar tusks signalled the wealth and prowess of the groom's kin. Among the Iatmul of the Middle Sepik, marriage was a transaction between clans as much as between individuals, and the goods that moved across it were reckoned in shell. Cowries, carried inland along ancient coastal trade routes, served as the standard currency of the region well into the twentieth century, so a headdress carrying thousands of them was a visible ledger of accumulated wealth. Boar tusks, harvested from pigs raised and exchanged at enormous social cost, added a second register of value tied to feasting and prestige. Worn by the bride or displayed at the exchange, an object like this converted family standing into spectacle, and its manufacture, knotted cord by knotted cord, represented months of labor by the women of the household. Item # 73387

Lot: 508 - Ropata Davis Carved Maori Kotiate, Manaia Figure

Ropata Davis (Maori, b. 1950s). Wooden Wahaika Kotiate with nacre shell inlay, n.d. Signed on handle. A hand club carved from hardwood, with a blade forming the twin-lobed silhouette of the kotiate, a short weapon used in close combat and associated with chiefly status. The notched waist gives the form its name, "to cut the liver." Along the shaft is a manaia figure worked in spirals, with a bird-headed terminal at the grip, both set with paua shell eyes. Carved facets from the maker's blade are visible across the surface, and a braided fiber suspension loop passes through the handle. The piece is signed on the handle by its maker. Ropata Davis is a Maori carver, sculptor, author, and poet from Manurewa, South Auckland, New Zealand. Self-taught, he works across painting, sketching, and design, and has carved in crystal, stone, pounamu (jade), wood, bone, ivory, shell, whale tooth, antler, horn, and tusk, among other materials. His work is held in museum and private collections in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the United States, and England. In 1994 he published Treasured Taonga (Random House New Zealand, ISBN 1 86941 223 0), a study of Maori bone carving technique and design illustrated with his own work. His carvings and profile appeared in Arts Dialogue between 1996 and 2002, including a carving responding to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and a two-meter taurapa (canoe sternpost). The kotiate, with its notched, two-lobed blade, functioned both as a close-quarters weapon and as a mark of rank; the manaia, a beaked profile figure, is a recurring guardian motif in Maori carving. Parts from certain animal species including nacre shell may require an additional license upon import into another country due to legislation relating to endangered species and environmental conservation. If you are not sure whether CITES rules apply to your item, please see the CITES Appendices. Item # 203987

Lot: 509 - Maori Whalebone Kotiate Parāoa, Tiki Finial

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori. A carved whalebone kotiate parāoa, with a flattened bilobed blade of fiddle form, notched to each side, rising to a slender shaft topped by a knop finial of opposed double spirals framing a pierced aperture for a suspension cord. The finial takes the form of a tiki head in profile, with the lower blade forming the simplified body. The bone surface is smooth white, with scattered natural pitting. The kotiate is one of the classic Maori short weapons (patu), alongside the stone mere and wooden wahaika. Its name is glossed as "to cut" or "divide the liver," referring to the close-quarters thrust for which it was designed. Such weapons passed down through generations, accumulating the mana of their bearers, and many acquired individual names. Whalebone examples, worked from stranded sperm whale (parāoa), were valued for density and luster. Parts from certain animal species may require an additional license upon import into another country due to legislation relating to endangered species and environmental conservation. If you are not sure whether CITES rules apply to your item, please see the CITES Appendices. Item # 203988

Lot: 510 - Maori Taiaha Fighting Staff (Taiaha), Koruru and Rauponga

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori culture. A taiaha, a traditional fighting staff, with the upper section carved as the arero (tongue) with rāuponga surface pattern of interlocking notched spirals, above a stylized koruru (face) with mother-of-pearl inlaid eyes and a projecting beak-like lower element. The long shaft is finished to a smooth, dark reddish-brown patina. Taiaha served as both close-combat weapons and symbols of chiefly rank and oratory authority among the Maori. Item # 204017

Lot: 511 - Tongan Apa'apai Club with Incised Geometric Panels, 18th C.

Polynesia, Tonga. A two-handed hardwood war club of the type known as 'akau or apa'apai, its head flaring into a broad rhomboid blade with a gently curved striking edge. A double-ridged collar divides the ornament from the plain shaft, and the upper section is covered in panels of finely incised chevrons, hatched lozenges, and notched borders, each field bounded by narrow bands of tooth-like nicks. The lower shaft is left uncarved, worn smooth by handling to a deep burnished brown, and pierced at the terminal for a suspension cord. Such clubs served both as formidable weapons and as emblems of rank, their surface decoration executed with shell or stone tools before the introduction of metal blades. Tongan clubs of the apa'apai form were among the first Polynesian objects to reach European collections, carried home by the voyages of Cook and by later mission and naval visitors, and they set the pattern for the way Oceanic art was received in the West. The dense allover incision, laid out in ruled panels of contrasting hatch direction, belongs to a carving tradition shared with Tongan and Samoan bark cloth and tattoo design, where meaning is carried by the rhythm and orientation of repeated marks rather than by figural imagery. Clubs of this quality were prestige possessions of chiefly men, named and inherited, and their value lay as much in ancestral association as in their obvious lethality. Item # 73388

Lot: 512 - Maori Tekoteko Ancestral Figure, Red Pigment

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori. A tekoteko ancestral guardian figure carved from a single length of wood, finished in red pigment, a color traditionally associated with tapu and chiefly power. The figure represents a tupuna (ancestor). The stance is crouched, with the tongue thrust outward in the gesture of challenge known as whakapohane, along with prominent eyes and a topknot. The musculature and facial planes are carved with defined detail. Figures of this type traditionally crowned the gable apex of a whare whakairo (carved meeting house) or stood at the marae, associated with genealogy, protection, and prestige. The extended tongue is associated with vitality and territorial assertion in Maori iconography. Tekoteko occupy a place of high honor in Maori architecture. Positioned at the apex of the whare whakairo, at the base of the poutokomanawa (central ridge support post), or at the entrance of a marae, they represent named tribal ancestors who confer guardianship (kaitiakitanga) upon those gathered below. The protruding tongue, familiar from the haka, signals defiance and the assertion of mana against intruders. The red pigment, traditionally kōkōwai (red ochre bound with shark-liver oil), marked objects and people of elevated tapu. Item # 204018

Lot: 513 - Maori Tekoteko Ancestral Figure, ca. 1850–1920

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori. A tekoteko ancestral figure carved from a single length of hardwood, standing frontally at scale. The head is oversized in proportion to the body, with the face densely incised with moko, the sacred facial tattoo encoding rank and lineage, with traces of red pigment remaining in the grooves. The eyes are deep-set beneath heavy brows, and the mouth is open with tongue and teeth carved. The body is nude, with three-fingered hands folded toward an erect phallus, associated with fertility and ancestral generative power in Maori iconography. A carved loop projects from the back, the point by which the figure was secured in place. The surface shows a weathered patina consistent with long exposure, associated with placement at the gable of a wharenui or pātaka, representing the ancestor whose mana was understood to protect the community. In Maori tradition, the tekoteko is a carved human figure mounted as a finial above the gable of an important building, most often a wharenui (meeting house) or a pātaka (raised storehouse belonging to a chief, used to safeguard food, tools, weapons, and prized possessions). It stands above the koruru, the carved head set where the bargeboards meet at the apex, and related figures may appear at the front central post, at the base of the poutokomanawa (central ridge-support post), or at the entrance to a marae. The figure represents the ancestor from whom the house descends. Human figures (tiki) in Maori art typically depict ancestors, and gable figures on meeting houses were often carved by master craftsmen as the visual focus of the whare whakairo (carved meeting house). Each gable figure represents a founding ancestor, the progenitor of the iwi (tribal group). The spiral moko carved across the face encodes genealogy, status, and identity, associated with the tupuna (ancestor) it represents. The phallus is part of the same iconographic tradition, associated with fertility and lineage continuity. Item # 204003

Lot: 514 - Maori God Stick (Whakapakoko Rākau), New Zealand, pre-1950

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori culture. A Maori god stick, or whakapakoko rākau (taura atua), a wooden peg surmounted by a carved human head and tapering to a point below. The face carries a broad brow, a flared nose, and lips drawn back over notched teeth, with inlaid shell eyes. Incised patterns, including chevrons, notching, and spirals, ornament the cheeks and jaw, while the lower shaft is smooth and rounded. Sculptures of this type served as temporary shrines for an atua (deity or ancestral spirit), summoned into the figure by a tohunga (priest) during ritual. The god stick was driven point-first into the earth, often bound with cord, and used in rites associated with healing, protection, and ceremony. The god stick occupies a distinctive place in Maori ritual practice. Unlike a permanent idol, it functioned as a provisional vessel: the atua was not thought to reside within the wood continuously but was drawn into it for the duration of a rite. During invocation the tohunga would bind the figure with a cord of dressed flax, chanting karakia (incantations) to summon the deity's presence. Once the ceremony concluded, the object reverted to ordinary tapu-charged wood. The pointed lower shaft allowed the stick to be planted upright in the ground of a sacred precinct, so that the carved head, the seat of mana, stood at the level of the celebrant. Parts from certain animal species including nacre shell may require an additional license upon import into another country due to legislation relating to endangered species and environmental conservation. If you are not sure whether CITES rules apply to your item, please see the CITES Appendices. Item # 203997

Lot: 515 - 19th C. Maori Waka Huia Treasure Box, Carved Tiki Figures

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori culture. A lidded treasure box, or waka huia, of elongated, canoe-like form, the rounded body carved in low relief. The domed lid and underside carry parallel striations, chevrons, and dotted registers, with scroll motifs at the ends. A projecting tiki figure at each end serves as a handle. Containers of this type held personal adornments belonging to a person of rank, including huia feathers and heirloom ornaments. Because these boxes were suspended from the rafters of a dwelling, the underside was fully carved, intended to be viewed from below. The underside carries red pigment highlights not present on the lid. The waka huia takes its name from the huia bird, whose black-and-white tail feathers were reserved for chiefs and worn on ceremonial occasions. Such treasures embodied a family's mana and whakapapa (genealogical descent), and their containers were themselves treated as taonga, prized objects passed between generations. These boxes were suspended overhead rather than set down, so the base remained visible and carvers worked rauponga and pakati notching across all surfaces, including the belly. The tiki figures served as protective ancestral guardians as well as grips and suspension loops. Item # 203996

Lot: 516 - 19th C. Maori Mere Pounamu, Chiefly Weapon (15.25"L)

New Zealand, Maori. A spatulate hand club ground and polished from a single block of translucent green pounamu, its broad blade tapering to a rounded striking edge and swelling toward a butt of ribbed, spherical form. Below the ridged pommel a neatly drilled suspension hole once carried a fiber wrist cord, allowing the weapon to hang ready at the warrior's side. This is a mere pounamu, the most prestigious form of the patu, the teardrop hand club used to deliver a swift thrusting or slicing blow. Fashioned laboriously from nephrite jade, such clubs were reserved for the chiefly elite and handed down as treasured heirlooms. The luminous stone, cool and dense to the touch, carries deep mana; many mere bore individual names and were prized above all other weapons as embodiments of ancestral power. Among the Maori, the patu was one of the principal weapons of the warrior, a short club wielded to strike a thrusting or slicing blow at close quarters. When not in use, patu were suspended from the wrist by a fiber loop or thrust through a belt as emblems of martial standing. The finest examples, mere pounamu, were worked from greenstone, a variety of jade, through patient grinding and polishing. Such objects frequently bore personal names, passed down within families, and were seized as trophies in war. So prestigious and supernaturally charged were they that captured chiefs are said to have surrendered their own mere to their captors, asking to be dispatched with the sacred club rather than an ordinary weapon. The most celebrated of these clubs, Tuhiwai, belonged to Te Rauparaha, the renowned war chief of Ngati Toa. It came to him from the Ngai Tahu chief Te Matenga Taiaroa in exchange for the war canoe Wai-ka-hua, and was long held to surpass all other pre-European mere pounamu in the perfection of its form and workmanship. Its name means "to strike the water": Te Rauparaha is said to have used it in this manner to divine the future and guide his campaigns. Regarded as intensely tapu by Ngati Toa, Tuhiwai was believed to change color upon the death of a member of the Wineera family, descendants of Te Rauparaha. One Ngati Toa tradition further names it the weapon with which Te Rangihaeata executed Captain Arthur Wakefield at the Wairau Affair of April 1843, the clash sparked by European encroachment onto Ngati Toa lands that led to the accidental death of Te Rangihaeata's wife, Te Rongopamamao, after which the grieving chief claimed the customary right of utu. Item # 203998

Lot: 517 - 18th C. Maori Jade Hei Tiki, Pounamu

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori. Pounamu (nephrite jade) hei tiki carved into the abstracted human form for which these pendants are famous. The figure's oversized head tilts sharply to the right, its brow ridged, the eyes rendered as raised circular bosses. Below, a compact torso gives way to three-fingered hands resting upon bent thighs, the openwork limbs sculpted with the fluid economy of a master carver. The deep, mottled green stone is patinated by generations of handling, glowing where the surface has been worked to a soft polish. Worn suspended from the neck by men and women alike, the hei tiki was the most highly valued of all Maori personal adornments, a mana-charged heirloom passed from ancestor to descendant; some read the figure as the first man, Tiki, others as a potent emblem of fertility and childbirth. Among the Maori, leadership is hereditary and imbued with mana, the power and prestige that can be embodied and passed down through the artworks associated with a lineage. Hei tiki number among these mana-charged heirlooms, connecting the living to the ancestors of the islands' pre-European past. Some may represent Hine-te-Iwaiwa, the legendary ancestress who exemplifies Maori womanhood and presides over childbirth. In certain Maori origin myths, Tiki was the first man, created by the god Tane; thus any carved human figure, whether of bone, stone, or wood, may be called a tiki. The prefix "hei" denotes something suspended from the neck, as in hei-tiki and hei-matau. Worn by both men and women, hei tiki hang vertically or occasionally sideways, and during a funeral they are displayed near the deceased alongside other family treasures. Many bear personal names and are remembered in tribal songs and oral histories. As the scholar Roger Neich observed, most of a hei tiki's prestige derives from its intimate contact with the great ancestors who wore it, rather than from any inherent magical meaning, and any search for a single "original meaning" is likely futile. This example is carved from inanga, among the most sought-after varieties of pounamu, named for the young whitebait fish on account of its pearly-white, blue-white, or pale green cast. When Captain James Cook inquired about greenstone in Queen Charlotte Sound, he recorded a Maori account that the stone was originally a fish, dragged ashore by a rope until it turned to stone (Brailsford, Greenstone Trails: The Maori and Pounamu, Hamilton, 1996, p. 6). Item # 203986

Lot: 518 - Maori Nephrite Kuru Ear Pendant, Contact Period

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori culture. A slender tapered baton of deep green nephrite, drilled at the crown for suspension and polished to a soft matte sheen. The stone is kawakawa pounamu, its translucent green flecked with dark inclusions, worked thin and flat in cross-section with finely rounded edges, shaped entirely by abrasion with sand and stone. Such kuru were ear ornaments, hung from a pierced lobe by a cord or worn at the throat, and belonged to men and women of rank. Pounamu carried mana in its own right: an heirloom substance signalling wealth, wisdom, and standing, passed between generations and exchanged in alliance. The elongated, unembellished form lets the material itself do the speaking. Pounamu, the nephrite of Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island), was among the most valuable materials in the Maori world, sourced from a handful of riverbeds in Westland and Otago and traded the length of both islands. Kawakawa, named for the dark green leaf of the pepper tree, is the classic variety: rich green with black chromite specks. Without metal tools, carvers ground and sawed the stone with sandstone abraders and cord-and-sand techniques, drilling suspension holes with a pump drill tipped in chert. A single small ornament could represent weeks of labor, which is part of why finished taonga were named, inherited, and remembered by whakapapa. A closely related kuru is held in the Penn Museum collection (object 291926). Item # 73389

Lot: 519 - Maori Pounamu Hei-Tiki Pendant, New Zealand, pre-1920

Oceania, New Zealand, Maori culture. New Zealand, Maori, ca. 1800 to 1920 CE. A pendant carved from a single plane of translucent green nephrite, in the hei-tiki form: the head canted to one side, three-fingered hands pressed against the body, legs folded beneath. The stone, known to the Maori as pounamu, is worked to a soft luster and pierced with openwork voids. The eyes are set with paua shell (Haliotis iris). A suspension hole through the crown carried the cord by which the pendant was worn at the throat. A hei-tiki was traditionally regarded as a taonga, a treasured heirloom associated with mana and ancestral memory, passed down across generations. Pounamu (New Zealand greenstone) is a nephrite of considerable hardness, and older hei-tiki were shaped without metal, ground and drilled with abrasives of sandstone, quartz, and water over months or years. Named examples acquired reputations of their own, mourned when lost and welcomed as returning kin. The paua-shell eyes, cut from abalone found along New Zealand's coasts, were chosen for their color and light-reflective quality. Parts from certain animal species including nacre shell may require an additional license upon import into another country due to legislation relating to endangered species and environmental conservation. If you are not sure whether CITES rules apply to your item, please see the CITES Appendices. Item # 203999

Lot: 520 - Tongan Ngatu Barkcloth with Lion, Star and Crown Motifs, 20th C.

Oceania, Polynesia, Tonga Islands. A large panel of ngatu, barkcloth beaten from the inner bast of the paper mulberry and painted in vegetable dyes, its warm browns laid over a soft red-brown ground. A grid of compartments carries stylized trees under radiant suns, quadrupeds resembling heraldic lions, chevron and triangle bands, and a column of Tongan lettering down one edge; star medallions charged with crosses and crowns border the opposite side, echoing Tongan royal emblems. Such cloths served as ceremonial attire, presentation textiles, and prestige gifts at weddings, funerals, and chiefly occasions. Professionally stretched and mounted within a frame for display. Ngatu is made communally by Tongan women, who beat strips of paper mulberry bast into thin sheets and paste them into vast lengths, then rub pigment across a raised design tablet (kupesi) laid beneath the cloth before finishing the motifs freehand in darker dye. The brown palette derives from koka bark and candlenut soot. The heraldic vocabulary here, star, cross, crown, and rampant beast, reflects the arms of the Tongan monarchy adopted under King George Tupou I in the nineteenth century, and the fusion of Christian and dynastic emblems with indigenous geometric borders that has characterized commemorative ngatu ever since. Cloths of this type were produced for royal jubilees, church openings, and other public occasions, and the lettering along the border typically names the event or the honoree. Item # 73390

Lot: 521 - Lampung Tampan Ship Cloth with Soul Ship Motif, Sumatra, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Indonesia, Lampung people. A square supplementary-weft cloth crowded with soul ships, woven in madder red and undyed cotton with a deep indigo key-fret border at either end. Tiered vessels rise through the field, their hulls carrying rows of frontal ancestral figures beneath scrolling prows, the whole enclosed by nested lozenge and meander bands. Such tampan were exchanged and displayed at rites of passage: birth, marriage, death, and elevation in rank, and frequently anchored the ceremonial meal. The ship carries the soul between worlds, a metaphor of transition that suited every threshold in Lampung social life. Mounted on cloth backing over a wooden stretcher. Lampung, at Sumatra's southern tip, grew wealthy on the pepper trade, and that wealth financed a weaving tradition widely regarded as among the finest in island Southeast Asia. Production of tampan and the larger palepai ceased around the close of the 19th century, so surviving examples are finite. Virtually every family owned tampan; the cloths circulated as gifts and markers of obligation between kin groups, their imagery of ships, trees, and ancestral figures encoding a cosmology in which movement across water stood for movement between states of being. Item # 73391

Lot: 522 - Lampung Tampan Ceremonial Ship Cloth with Ancestral House, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Sumatra, Lampung people. A square supplementary-weft cotton cloth built around a gabled ancestral house, its broad roof sheltering rows of small standing figures and elongated organic forms tied to lineage, protection, and the spirit world. Bands of interlocking geometric ornament close the composition above and below. The weaver worked naturally dyed red and indigo blue-green wefts against a warm yellow-brown ground, the patterning dense and rigorously counted. Such tampan were exchanged at rites of passage, birth, marriage, death, and changes in rank, and often anchored the ceremonial meal. The vessel-like architecture belongs to the "ship cloth" tradition, understood as the craft that carries the soul between worlds. Lampung, at the southern tip of Sumatra, grew wealthy on the pepper trade, and that wealth financed one of island Southeast Asia's most accomplished weaving traditions. Nearly every family owned tampan, the small square cloths used to mark transitions in status, and their imagery, ships, ancestral houses, tiered structures crowded with figures and animals, is generally read as vessels of transition, conveying the soul or the celebrant from one condition to the next. Production in Lampung effectively ceased at the close of the 19th century, so surviving examples are finite; later Sumatran weaving never resumed the technique at this level of density. Mounted on a cloth backing and stretched over a wooden support for display. Item # 73392

Lot: 523 - Lampung Tampan Ship Cloth, Sumatra, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Indonesia, Lampung people. A small square tampan, or ship cloth, worked in supplementary weft on a natural cotton ground with madder-red, gold, and indigo-blue threads. The field carries an abstracted vessel form, its diagonal registers filled with stepped diamonds, hooked spirals, and rows of standing figures reduced to columns and crooks; narrow blue meander bands frame the composition above and below. Such cloths, understood as soul ships carrying the spirit toward the afterlife, were exchanged at rites of passage and often laid as the focal point of ceremonial meals. Professionally mounted on cloth backing and stretched over a wooden support for display. Tampan were owned and used by virtually every Lampung family, marking birth, marriage, death, and changes in social rank. Their production was underwritten by the pepper trade, which brought extraordinary wealth to the southern Sumatran coast and financed a weaving tradition of exceptional refinement. That tradition ended abruptly: Lampung weaving ceased at the close of the 19th century, so surviving tampan represent a closed corpus, no longer added to. Item # 73393

Lot: 524 - Nias Balato Headhunting Sword with Lasara Hilt and Rattan-Bound Amulet Ball

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Nias Island, Sumatra. A chief's balato, its hilt carved as a Lasara, the protective creature of Nias, jaws agape over a lolling tongue, curved fangs and small deer antlers springing from the temples. A diminutive Bekhu, a monkey-formed demon spirit with splayed limbs and bulging eyes, rides the crest. A grooved brass ferrule divides hilt from the slender single-edged blade, which sheathes in a metal-banded wooden scabbard. Lashed to the scabbard is a rattan-bound magic ball of pierced boar tusks, animal teeth and a long nail, a suspended metal chain at one side. Such assemblages were held to arm the weapon and its bearer with supernatural protection. Carried by noblemen and warriors on headhunting expeditions. Custom base. On Nias, the balato was never a purely martial object. Its potency came from the spirits attached to it: the Lasara, a composite guardian of dragon, deer and serpent traits, guarded the hand that held it, while the Bekhu perched at the pommel embodied the captured spirit-servant that made the weapon effective in the hunt for heads. The rank of the owner was legible in the hilt: only aristocrats and proven warriors carried examples with elaborated crest figures.\n\nThe tusk-and-tooth bundle, known locally among the amulet class as the raga, was assembled by a priest and attached to the scabbard rather than the blade, so that its power travelled with the weapon in and out of use. Boar tusks and canine teeth conferred ferocity; iron elements such as the nail added a foreign, and therefore potent, ingredient. Headhunting on Nias persisted into the later 19th century, curtailed after Dutch colonial consolidation of the island around 1900, which makes surviving assemblages with intact amulet bundles comparatively scarce. Item # 73394

Lot: 525 - Dayak Mandau Headhunter Sword with Carved Bone Aso Hilt and Scabbard

Southeast Asia, Borneo, Kalimantan, Dayak. A headhunter's mandau, the emblematic side arm of the Dayak peoples of Borneo. The heavy forged iron blade swells toward a rounded tip, its base ornamented with two rows of inlaid metal circles and curvilinear "mata kalong" motifs, with three sets of four perforations along the straight back. The hilt, carved from bone in openwork aso (dragon-dog) forms tangled with tendrils, is seated in blackened resin set with a small coin and bound with plaited rattan. Its wooden scabbard is lashed with finely plaited rattan knots and collared in carved bone. Lashed alongside is the palm-bark apis sheath holding the companion knife, piso raout, with iron blade, wood grip, and carved bone pommel. Worn, ritual, and personal, the mandau carried its owner's prestige and protective power. Among the Dayak, the mandau was never merely a weapon. Forged by smiths whose craft carried its own ritual sanction, it accompanied its owner into warfare, ceremony, and the once-prestigious practice of headhunting, and was believed to hold protective and supernatural force particular to the man who bore it. The aso, a composite dragon-dog spirit that recurs across Bornean carving, tattoo, and architecture, guards the hand that grips it. The small companion knife is the rarer survival. As Stone's Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor observes, "This knife is often missing from the mandaus brought here as the Dayaks are said to be more unwilling to part with it than the sword itself, possibly because they use it for cleaning up the heads they have taken from their enemies." Complete sets retaining blade, apis sheath, and carved hilt are correspondingly scarce. The coin embedded in the resin ferrule appears to be a Netherlands East Indies issue, consistent with the colonial-era circulation of Dutch currency through Borneo; such coins were commonly set into hilts as both ornament and charm. Item # 73395

Lot: 526 - Moro Kris Sword with 12-Wave Blade and Cockatoo Pommel, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Philippines, Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago, Moro. A sinuous fighting sword whose forged blade ripples through twelve waves before tapering to a rounded point, the surface carrying the mottled figure of pattern-welded steel. At the base a broad asymmetrical ganja flares into a serrated elephant-trunk projection, met by a chiselled guard with a single stirrup and scrolling volute. The grip is tightly bound in braided rattan over its core, rising to a hardwood burl pommel carved in the classic cockatoo form, its beak-like crest polished to a deep mahogany sheen. Such kris served the Moro of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago as both weapon and rank insignia, worn by datu and warrior alike. Mounted on a custom display base. The kris of the southern Philippines descends from the Malay keris but diverged into a heavier, longer weapon suited to the sword-and-shield combat of the Sulu and Mindanao sultanates. Wave count is deliberate: always odd or even by local convention and read as an index of a blade's character, with longer wavy blades associated with prestige owners. The blade's laminated construction, layers of harder and softer iron folded and welded, produced the visible grain that older Western catalogs habitually called "Damascus", a loose usage for pattern-welded rather than true crucible steel. The hilt form is conventionally described as a cockatoo or kakatua pommel, an abstracted bird head shared across Moro edged weapons and echoed in the horse-hoof and naga variants. Bindings of braided rattan or silver wire secured the tang and gave grip in a humid climate. Kris of this type remained in active use through the Spanish colonial wars and the American Philippine campaigns of the early twentieth century, when many entered Western collections as trophies. Item # 73396

Lot: 527 - Dayak Mandau Headhunter Sword with Carved Bone Aso Hilt, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Borneo, Kalimantan, Dayak. A headhunter's mandau whose polished blade curves to a lifted point, its convex face inlaid with brass "matah joh" roundels and s-scrolled mata kalong motifs, the spine pierced with openwork tracery. The angular hilt, carved from deer bone, seethes with interlaced aso dragon-dog imagery, scrolled snouts, and hooked tendrils, tufts of dyed hair sprouting from drilled sockets. Plaited wire binds the grip below, and a small coin is bedded in resin at the base of the pommel. Carried as both weapon and prestige emblem, the mandau served Dayak men in warfare and, in the older order, in the ritual taking of heads, its ornament as much protective as decorative. The aso, a composite dragon-dog, is the central protective motif of Dayak art, guarding the owner and animating the weapon; on mandau hilts it is typically rendered in deer antler or bone in dense, interlocking relief, with human hair or fiber tufts inserted to feed its power. Blade inlays of brass dots and scrolls, known as matah joh (eyes) and mata kalong, marked quality and were understood to give the blade sight.\n\nEx collection of Ami Brown, New York, who held the Coca-Cola franchise in Israel and assembled a collection of more than 3,000 Indonesian keris and other Southeast Asian and tribal works, portions of which were exhibited during his lifetime at the Museum of Art, Ein Harod. Item # 73397

Lot: 528 - Dong Son Short Sword with Iron Blade and Flared Cast Handle

Southeast Asia, Vietnam or Indonesian Archipelago, Dong Son culture. A short sword joining two technologies: a long, leaf-tapered forged blade, heavily mineralized to a rust-red crust, socketed into a cast copper-alloy hilt of trumpet form. The handle flares from a stepped, ribbed collar to a broad splayed pommel, its shoulders set with a pair of raised circular bosses, and carries a green cuprous patina that plays against the ferrous blade. Casting was almost certainly by the lost-wax method, the technique that underpins the whole Dong Son metalworking repertoire. Such weapons served as much for display as for combat, likely functioning as emblems of martial rank among the elite of the Red River and island trade networks, where the finest bronzes were prestige goods before they were tools. By about 300 BCE a civilization founded on elaborate bronze working extended from the Tonkin region into Laos, Cambodia, and the Indonesian archipelago. Named for convenience after the type site of Dong Son, it may never have been a true cultural unity, but its metalwork is unmistakable: ceremonial drums large and small (the greatest of them found on Bali and known as the Moon of Bali), and lavishly decorated ceremonial axes made, in all likelihood, as emblems of power. The decorative vocabulary favors the spiral and rows of human and animal figures and masks. Certain relief patterns carry so-called "ship of the dead" designs, kin to those later woven into the textiles of Borneo and Sumatra, suggesting the motif already circulated in cloth. Later Dong Son art appears to have transmitted versions of the asymmetrical squared-hook patterns of contemporary Zhou dynasty China into Vietnam, Cambodia, and Borneo. Item # 73398

Lot: 529 - Batak Pagar Medicine Figure with Fiber Headdress, 19th C. or Earlier

Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Indonesia, Batak. A gaunt ancestor figure hewn from dense hardwood, columnar in build, its wide planar face reduced to a ridged brow, wedge nose, and set mouth beneath a woven fiber bundle headdress still bound in place. The torso is treated abstractly, blocky arms flattened against the body, with a large open "pukpuk" cavity cut through the trunk to receive potent organic matter, human hair, nail parings, and other substances charged by the datu (shaman) for healing and for the casting of spells. A small square recess is incised on the chest. The surface carries a deep brown patina with crusted encrustation from repeated ritual handling and offering. Mounted on a custom base. Among the Batak of the Sumatran highlands, protective magic was the professional domain of the datu, a ritual specialist whose apparatus included carved staffs (tunggal panaluan), inscribed bark books (pustaha), and pagar figures such as this one. The word pagar means "fence": the figure was a barrier set against illness, sorcery, and hostile intent, guarding a house, a village, or an individual. Its power resided less in the carving than in the pupuk, a compound of organic ingredients (hair, nail clippings, plant material and other substances) prepared by the datu and packed into the hollowed cavity, which activated the wood and gave the ancestral spirit a residence. Encrusted deposits and fiber wrappings on surviving examples are the residue of that active service rather than decoration. Item # 73399

Lot: 530 - Mortlock Islands Tapuanu Gable Mask with Tiered Headdress, 20th C.

Oceania, Micronesia, Caroline Islands, Mortlock Islands. A towering gable mask carved from a single plank of light wood, its elongated shield-shaped face crowned by a two-tiered headdress. The minimalist visage presents relief angular brows over a grooved glabella, tiny slit eyes, a long faceted nose, and a small black mouth with pointed goatee. A recessed beard carries notched linear devices, while the flanking rim and headdress bear registers of black bands filled with comb-like ticks against pale ground. The whole is finished in chalky white lime pigment, now dry and crackled, with black and ochre painted detail. Such masks, called tapuanu, were mounted on the gables of men's ceremonial houses, where they guarded the community and its scant crops against the destructive winds of typhoons. The Mortlock Islands (Nomoi group, southeast of Chuuk) produced one of the most reductive sculptural idioms in Oceania: the tapuanu, a spirit face pared to brow, nose, and mouth, whitened with lime and banded in soot black. Guardianship was practical as much as spiritual. The atolls rise barely above the sea, and a single typhoon could destroy the breadfruit groves on which survival depended. Masks were held by men's associations and hung on the gables of the ceremonial house, or carried in dances performed to secure a good harvest and calm the storm season. Their spare geometry drew the attention of European modernists in the early twentieth century, and the type remains among the most sought-after in Micronesian art. A related large example appeared in the Michel Perinet collection, Christie's, 23 June 2021. Item # 73400

Lot: 531 - Ifugao Bulul Rice Guardian Figure, Northern Luzon, 19th C.

Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Luzon, Ifugao. A standing male guardian carved from a single block of dense hardwood, rising on an integral corseted base with broad flat feet and splayed toes. The legs are engaged, the torso lean beneath wide shoulders, the arms held straight at the sides with fingers incised across the thighs, the phallus bared. Above, a squared face with lidded eyes, straight nose, and pursed mouth sits under a smooth bowl-shaped cap of striated hair bound by a fillet, flanked by projecting ears. Weathering and long handling have given the wood a dark, unctuous patina. Such figures, known as bulul, are stylized ancestors set to guard the rice crop and granary, their power drawn from the spirit believed to inhabit them. Bulul (also bul-ul or tinagtaggu) are the best known sculptural form of the Ifugao and their Kalanguya neighbors in the Cordillera highlands of northern Luzon. Carved in pairs, male and female, from narra or other hard woods by a specialist carver working under ritual constraint, they were consecrated with sacrifice, rice wine, and pig blood, then installed in the granary or brought into the fields at planting and harvest to secure and multiply the crop. Repeated libations build the thick, resinous accretion prized on old examples. Ifugao carvers are especially esteemed for the restraint of the type: the swelling calf, the shelf of the shoulders, and the bowl of hair carry the form, while surface ornament is refused almost entirely. Item # 73401

Lot: 532 - Solomon Islands Carved Wood Crocodile and Serpent, 19th-20th C.

Melanesia, Solomon Islands. A hardwood crocodile stretched out in mid-hunt, jaws parted on a bristling set of inset bone teeth while a slender serpent loops twice around its body and slips beneath the open lower jaw. The whole surface is worked in tightly incised scale patterning, ridged along the back and tail, and set with mother of pearl: a round disc for each eye and a row of pale triangles marching along the flanks. The tail curls upward in a hook, the stubby limbs braced against the ground. Crocodile imagery carries ancestral and totemic weight across the Solomons, and a carving of this scale was likely made for display or prestige rather than daily use. Throughout the Solomon Islands the saltwater crocodile occupies an ambiguous place between predator and kin. In many island communities crocodiles are understood as ancestral beings or as the embodied form taken by particular spirits, and clans claiming descent from them treated the animals as protectors whose favor could be courted and whose anger could be fatal. The serpent is the crocodile's frequent companion in Melanesian carving, and the pairing here, coiled body against armored back, reads as a contest between two potent creatures rather than simple ornament. The luminous inlay is characteristic Solomon Islands practice: nautilus and pearl shell cut into discs and triangles, then bedded into the wood with parinarium nut paste. The same technique animates the region's canoe prow figures, food bowls, and shields, where flashes of shell catch the light against dark surfaces. Item # 73402

Lot: 533 - Kayan Dayak Hudoq Boar Mask, Borneo, Early 20th C.

Southeast Asia, Borneo, East Kalimantan, Kayan Dayak. A dried gourd transformed into the long snouted head of a wild boar, its natural curve doing the sculptor's work. The tapering muzzle terminates in a blackened, pierced nose; incised and pigmented checkerwork runs the length of the jaw as a row of interlocking teeth, broken by a single upswept tusk. Narrow lentoid openings pierce the hollowed interior for the wearer's eyes. Featherweight and open at the back, the mask was made to be danced rather than displayed, worn in Hudoq performances that invoke the boar's strength to guard the fields. Custom base. Among the Kayan, Kenyah, and Bahau peoples of East Kalimantan, the Hudoq is danced at the opening of the rice planting season. Masked performers, their bodies sheathed in banana or palm leaf, embody the spirits of ancestors and of the creatures who threaten or protect the crop: the boar, the hornbill, the elephant, and a menagerie of composite beings. The dance drives off pests and malevolent forces, summons the rice soul, and secures a fertile harvest. Most Hudoq masks are carved from softwood in flamboyant polychrome; gourd examples such as this one are a lighter, more economical variant, prized by dancers for how little they weigh through long hours of performance and correspondingly scarcer in collections. Item # 73403

Lot: 534 - Nicobar Islands Kareau Seated Female Guardian Figure with Shell Eyes

Nicobar Islands, Bay of Bengal. A seated woman carved from a single block of wood, legs folded and back straight, her separately fitted arms pegged at the shoulders and the left raised outward in a halting, commanding gesture. Mother-of-pearl eyes with dark stone pupils give the wide face its unblinking stare, reinforced by an open mouth, painted markings across the cheeks and brow, prominent ears with distended pierced lobes, and a short centrally parted coiffure rendered in relief and darkened pigment. Surfaces carry a deep red-brown patina, burnished darker across the legs from long handling. Such kareau were made as protective images, set in houses to intercept illness, sorcery, and malevolent spirits and to hold the household in health. Kareau (also henta-koi) were commissioned from ritual specialists known as menluana, who carved and consecrated them for a specific household or occasion. The figures were installed at thresholds, in dwellings, and beside canoes and pig pens, positioned to face outward and confront whatever approached: epidemic disease, hostile spirits, sorcery, and, in the colonial period, foreigners themselves. Their potency lay in confrontation, hence the frontal stare, the arrested gesture, and the inlaid shell eyes that never close. Once their work was done or their power judged spent, many were discarded, which is one reason surviving examples are scarce. Nicobarese material of this quality rarely reaches the market. The largest institutional holdings are in the Linden-Museum Stuttgart and the British Museum, assembled largely through late 19th and early 20th century colonial-era collecting in the Bay of Bengal. Item # 73404

Lot: 535 - Pair Aboriginal Stone Tjurunga, Central Australia, ca. 1880–1940

Australia, Central Australian Aboriginal. A pair of stone tjurunga, oval in form and incised with concentric circle and linear motifs. The larger example carries a sinuous line linking concentric circle groupings, with additional linear marks across the surface. The smaller example carries interlaced sinuous lines with parallel hatching, with traces of red pigment in the incisions. Both show a naturally worn, rounded surface. Tjurunga are sacred objects associated with ceremonial and totemic traditions among Central Australian Aboriginal peoples, with incised designs traditionally understood to encode ancestral narratives associated with specific clans or totemic beings. Item # 203960

Lot: 536 - Hawaiian Stone Medicine Bowl & Lava Pounder with Mushroom Finial, Miniature (2)

Oceania, Hawaiian Islands, Native Hawaiian. A pair of small ground-stone implements for the preparation of medicines. The bowl is a pale gray stone of unadorned organic form, its loosely tapered walls rising from a rounded base to a slightly irregular rim, the interior hollow smoothed and dished by long use. Beside it stands a pounder of dark vesicular lava, its pitted surface bristling with gas pockets, shaped to a bulbous body and a rounded mushroom finial that seats neatly in the palm. Together they form a working mortar and pestle, likely employed by a kahuna lapaau, the Hawaiian healing specialist, to grind roots, barks, and leaves into medicinal pastes. Both pieces are miniature in scale, sized for potent doses rather than bulk foodstuffs. Healing in old Hawaii was the province of the kahuna lapaau, priest-physicians trained through long apprenticeship in the properties of native plants: noni, awa, olena, kukui. Their pharmacopoeia depended on grinding and pounding, and small stone mortars and pounders like these were the essential apparatus, kept apart from culinary tools because the medicines they held carried mana and required ritual care in their preparation and administration. Hawaiian stoneworkers had no metal, shaping basalt and dense beach cobbles by pecking with harder hammerstones and then abrading the surfaces with coral, sand, and water. The lava pounder retains its natural vesicular skin, its porosity left untouched where the maker only needed to define the swelling body and knobbed grip. Item # 73405

Lot: 537 - Sulawesi Coral Limestone Ancestor Figure

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Sulawesi Island. A standing human figure hewn from porous white fossilized coral limestone, its body pared down to essential volumes. The columnar torso rises from an untapered base to a rounded, helmet-like head set on a short neck, while the arms are indicated in shallow relief hugging the flanks, hands meeting low over the abdomen. The pitted, vesicular stone carries its own texture, and weathering has softened the facial planes almost to abstraction. Figures of this type are understood to have served as intermediaries between the living and the ancestral realm, commissioned to honor revered forebears and to give ancestral presence a physical focus within the community. Mounted on a custom display base. Across the islands of eastern Indonesia, carved ancestor effigies anchored a religious economy built on reciprocity with the dead. Descendants approached such figures for guidance, fertility, and protection, and the continued welfare of a lineage was thought to depend on the attention its ancestors received. The choice of fossil coral limestone, a soft, cavernous reef stone quarried near the coast, favors mass and silhouette over fine detail: the carver works in broad planes, and the material's natural pitting supplies the surface. Sculpture of this kind is notoriously difficult to date, since the stone weathers rapidly in a tropical climate and the forms remained conservative over long spans. Item # 73406

Lot: 538 - Sulawesi Coral Stone Ancestor Figure, Abstracted Idol on Custom Stand

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Sulawesi Island. A human presence pared down to its barest signals: a triangular face set in low relief above a tapering, plank-like torso. The figure is carved from porous white coral limestone, its pitted surface softened by long weathering until the modeling survives only as broad planes and shallow ridges. Shoulders read as a slight flare, the waist as a pinch, and the head sits forward of the body like a mask fused to a post. Figures of this type are understood to have served as intermediaries between the living and the ancestral realm, commissioned to honor revered forebears and to give ancestral veneration a physical focus. Mounted on a custom display stand. Across the highlands and coasts of Sulawesi, carved ancestral effigies anchored the reciprocal relationship between a lineage and its dead: descendants offered remembrance and rite, and expected in return guidance, protection, and the continued presence of the ancestor within the community. Coral limestone, quarried from raised reef terraces that fringe much of the island, was worked while comparatively soft and hardened on exposure, a material choice that favors mass and silhouette over fine detail and accounts for the deliberately reductive idiom seen here. Item # 73407

Lot: 539 - Bagobo Limestone Burial Urn Figure, Cotabato, ca. 600–900 CE

Southeast Asia, Philippines, Mindanao, Cotabato, Bagobo. A seated anthropomorphic figure carved from pale limestone, originally set atop the lid of a secondary burial urn from cave sites in Cotabato province. The head is blocky, set on rounded shoulders, with drilled dot eyes and an incised mouth, while flexed arms descend to rest on the knees, the hands marked with faint striations suggesting fingers. The stone surface is weathered and carries mineral accretions consistent with long cave interment. Figures of this type, positioned at the center of urn lids, are understood to represent or identify the deceased interred within. Limestone burial urns of this tradition are documented almost exclusively in Cotabato, distinguishing them from the earthenware jar burials found elsewhere in the Philippines, and were used for secondary interment following an initial burial. The limestone burial urns of Cotabato belong to a jar-burial complex that flourished across coastal, cave, and upland sites in Mindanao, with the practice broadly dated between roughly 2,800 and 1,000 years ago. Unlike the more widespread earthenware jar burials of the Philippines, these heavy stone urns, either squared or rounded and often incised with geometric banding, cluster almost exclusively in the Cotabato region. Systematic archaeology in Maguindanao began only in the 1960s, yet excavations have since documented numerous anthropomorphic vessels, several accompanied by smaller jars holding personal adornments such as shell and ceramic bracelets and iron plates. The covers characteristically carry human-like figures rising from the center, some with limbs extending toward the edges; scholars hypothesize these effigies served to identify the individual interred. Many urns still contained skeletal remains when first acquired in the 1970s. Item # 203926

Lot: 540 - 19th C. Javanese Bronze Garuda Oil Lamp (Wayang Kulit Theater)

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Java, ca. 19th century CE. A bronze hanging oil lamp used to illuminate the wayang kulit (shadow puppet theater), in the form of a Garuda, a mythical bird. These performances use the play of light on a linen screen to project the puppets' shadows. The vessel features a spout on the chest, an arched handle with a connected chain and suspension hook behind the neck, and a removable lid with a fish-shaped handle set on the body before the tail. The surface is etched with detailed feathers, and a crown is set on the head. The wings and tail are attached via rivets. The Garuda is rooted in ancient Hindu mythology, where it serves as the mount of Lord Vishnu. It is featured as the national emblem of Indonesia and frequently depicted in Indonesian temples and puppet theater. In traditional Javanese wayang kulit, Garuda appears as a revered character, often embodying loyalty and heroism in epic narratives such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Item # 191248

Lot: 541 - Toba Batak Pandilati Gable Ornament with Buffalo Heads and Portrait Medallion

Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Indonesia, Toba Batak. A towering arrow-form architectural panel of carved and painted wood, its surface worked in dense low relief with scrolling tendrils, rosettes, and lozenge bands. A fierce buffalo-headed mask guards each end, horns curling into the volutes, eyes set as raised discs. Between them a circular medallion holds a half-length portrait of a man in a cylindrical hat and necktie, perhaps a founding ancestor or a leading figure of the household. Pigments of black, red, white, and green articulate the carving. Panels of this type, pandilati, were fixed to the gable of the Toba Batak clan house, where protective imagery met the outward-facing display of lineage prestige. The Toba Batak of north Sumatra built their ruma adat as cosmological diagrams: a beast-inhabited underworld below, human life in the raised chamber, and the ancestral upper realm in the soaring saddle-backed roof. The gable field was the house's public face, and the carving that covered it, gorga, was cut in low relief and colored with a restricted triad of black soot, red earth, and white lime, the three pigments held to correspond to the three worlds. Green, as here, is a late intrusion of imported paint and is one of the surer indicators of a colonial-era date.\n\nThe recurring horned mask is generally read as the singa, a composite guardian conflating buffalo, serpent, and human features rather than the lion its Sanskrit-derived name suggests. Its function is apotropaic: it turns away malevolent forces at the threshold and the roofline. The naturalistic portrait medallion is the anomaly and the interest of this panel, an image made under the influence of Dutch colonial photography and printed portraiture, grafted onto a wholly indigenous carving idiom. Item # 73408

Lot: 542 - Majapahit Trishula Trident Finial with Shiva Iconography, 12th-14th C.

South East Asia, Indonesia, Java, Majapahit period. A cast trident head, its three tapering blades rising from a horizontal bar above a hollow cylindrical haft socket. Openwork arches curve outward from the socket in scrolling, thorn-like foliate tendrils, and small stylized figures cling to the shaft below the central blade. The trishula is the weapon of Shiva, its three prongs read as the three gunas, the qualities of purity (sattva), activity (rajas) and lethargy (tamas), with which the god effects cosmic dissolution. Blue-green cuprous patina overall with scattered earthen encrustation. Such finials were mounted on wooden staves and carried as temple regalia or processional emblems of Shaiva authority. Mounted on a custom display base. Shaivism arrived in Java with Indian traders and Brahmins and by the East Javanese period had fused with local ancestor cult into a distinctly Javanese religious idiom, one in which Shiva and the Buddha were often worshipped in tandem. The Majapahit empire (1293 to circa 1500), the last and greatest of the Hindu-Buddhist states of the archipelago, produced ritual metalwork of exceptional refinement: lamps, bells, water vessels, and staff finials cast by the lost-wax method in a high-tin alloy that weathers to the pale green seen here.\n\nThe trishula belongs to Shiva's essential attribute set alongside the damaru drum and the noose. Beyond the three gunas, exegetes read the prongs as past, present and future, or as creation, preservation and destruction, the three powers by which the god governs time itself. Carried aloft on a pole, such a head announced the presence of a Shaiva priest or the sanctity of a procession. Item # 73409

Lot: 543 - Javanese Sandstone Makara Dragon Head, 10th-16th C.

South East Asia, Indonesia, Java. A red sandstone dragon head carved fully in the round, jaws thrown open around a bristling row of teeth and a curling protruding tongue. The upturned snout, bulging orbs, and small backswept ears follow the makara-kala vocabulary of Javanese temple sculpture, while a flame or foliate scroll unfurls beneath the chin and a beaded necklace loops across the throat. Traces of stucco cling to the weathered gray surface, remnants of the finishing coat once applied to architectural stone. Such heads terminated balustrades, framed doorways, and guarded stairways at candi complexes, where the gaping mouth served an apotropaic role, devouring misfortune before it crossed the threshold. Mounted on an old custom block base. The makara, a composite aquatic beast with an elephantine or crocodilian snout, entered Java from Indian prototypes and became one of the defining ornaments of candi architecture from the Central Javanese period onward. Paired makaras flank stairways with their scrolled trunks turned outward, often disgorging lions, dwarfs, or ropes of pearls, and they typically appear in company with the kala, the lion-demon mask set above the lintel. Together the two form a protective threshold: kala above, makara below, framing the passage from profane ground into sacred space. The convention persisted through the East Javanese and Majapahit centuries, where snouts grow sharper, tongues curl more assertively, and jewelry such as the beaded collar seen here becomes part of the standard repertoire. Item # 73410

Lot: 544 - Published 19th C. Dogon Togu Na Support Post, Mali (92"H)

African, Dogon. West Africa, Mali, Bandiagara Escarpment, Dogon peoples, ca. mid to late 19th century CE. Published: Togu Na: The African Dogon — "House of Men, House of Words." New York: Rizzoli, 1977, page 114. A support post from a togu na, carved from a single forked timber rising to a Y-form crown. The natural bifurcation of the tree is retained and structural: the two arms supported the millet-stalk roof, while the shaft below carries carved decoration. The composition depicts a standing female figure reduced to essential forms. A small head sits high on the shaft, with a coiffure rendered in parallel striations and the face reduced to a vertical ridge of nose flanked by minimal features. Below, a pair of conical breasts projects in relief, the dominant carved element on the post. A band of vertical grooving marks the waist, and incised curves below suggest the legs. A continuous incised chevron pattern runs the length of both arms, cut with irregular spacing across the span. The surface is weathered to a silver-grey tone, with raised grain and rounded edges, consistent with long-term outdoor exposure. The togu na is the men's assembly shelter and the political heart of a Dogon village — the "house of words," where elders debate community affairs. Its roof is built deliberately low so that no man can rise to his feet in anger. The supporting posts are carved with female figures widely understood to reference ancestral presence, and their placement means the deliberations of the men are conducted in the company of the ancestors. Architectural sculpture of this scale rarely leaves Mali, and published examples are scarcer still. Item # 203969

Lot: 545 - Dogon Gomintogo Mask with Horn Crest, Mali, Early 20th C.

West Africa, Mali, Dogon. A tall dance mask carved from a single block of light wood, its architecture reduced to planes and angles. A deep rectangular recess frames the face, pierced by two triangular eyes, with a small knob-like mouth projecting below and long narrow ears rising at either side. From the crown sweeps a single great curved horn, the element that gives the form its silhouette. The surface is a dry tan with scattered blackened residue where the older skin survives. Known as gomintogo, masks of this type are now read as composite beasts, part rhinoceros and part antelope, and were danced in ceremonies honoring ancestors and renewing the agricultural order. John Falcon observed of this type: "Masks with a large single projection such as this, are now thought to more often represent a rhinoceros. The mask probably represents a composite beast part rhinoceros, part antelope, and is believed to be among the earliest Dogon mask forms. It recalls the son of a farmer who killed a beast ravaging the crops who fell ill thereafter. The mask dances to appease the spirit of the fallen animal and thus cure the farmer's son and, by extension, insures the fertility of the fields." A comparable example is published in Dogon, Musee du Quai Branly, 2011, no. 83, p. 365. The narrative is characteristically Dogon in its logic: an animal killed in defense of the harvest becomes a spirit that must be danced back into balance, the cure of the individual and the fertility of the fields treated as a single problem. Masks of this early type belong to the wider repertoire of the awa masking society, whose performances at funerary rites and at the dama that closes the mourning cycle escort the dead into the ranks of the ancestors. Item # 73411

Lot: 546 - Dogon Carved Wood Female Figure with Helmet Head, Mali

West Africa, Mali, Dogon. A slender standing female reduced to essential geometry, carved in hardwood with a domed, helmet-shaped head incised with a spare register of facial marks. The narrow torso carries small projecting breasts, and elongated arms run flush along the flanks before meeting in front above rounded hips. Surfaces bear a thick, hard, encrusted patina of the kind built up by repeated libation and handling, the residue of ritual attention rather than display. Figures of this type served Dogon household and lineage shrines, standing as intermediaries with ancestors and protective spirits, likely invoked in petitions for fertility, health, and the wellbeing of the compound. Presented on a custom base. Dogon sculpture from the Bandiagara escarpment of central Mali is among the most consequential African art for the history of European modernism: its radical abstraction, columnar volumes, and frontal stillness were absorbed by Parisian artists in the early twentieth century and continue to condition how the corpus is seen. Within Dogon practice, such figures belong to shrines maintained by the family head or the hogon, where sacrificial offerings of millet gruel, oil, and blood were poured over the wood. The resulting crust is not neglect but accumulated evidence of use, and it is read by specialists as a chronology of devotion. Item # 73412

Lot: 547 - Dogon or Tellem Style Female Figure with Raised Arm, Mali

West Africa, Mali, Dogon or Tellem. A small standing female carved in dense wood, her left arm thrown vertically above the head in the raised-arm gesture that defines the Bandiagara figural tradition. The head is domed and serene, with lidded almond eyes, a blade nose, jutting lips, and small ears set along the back of the skull. Angular relief marks the breasts; the navel projects sharply and a zigzag band runs horizontally across the abdomen, likely rendering scarification. The legs are compressed and abbreviated beneath heavy hips. A dry gray-brown patina covers the eroded surface. Such figures, sheltered in the cliff caves of the escarpment, likely served altars concerned with rain, fertility, and ancestral intercession. The raised-arm figure is among the most discussed forms in West African sculpture. Carvings of this type were recovered from the rock shelters of the Bandiagara Escarpment, burial caves used first by the Tellem, who occupied the cliffs from roughly the 11th to the 16th centuries, and afterward by the Dogon, who inherited both the sites and something of their sculptural vocabulary. Continuity of form across those centuries makes secure separation of Tellem from early Dogon hands notoriously difficult, and the two attributions are routinely offered together, as here.\n\nInterpretations of the gesture vary: supplication for rain, an appeal to the ancestors, or a reference to the Nommo, the primordial beings of Dogon cosmology whose arms are lifted toward the sky. The eroded, dessicated surfaces typical of the group result from long exposure in the dry cliff shelters and from sacrificial libations poured over the wood. Item # 73413

Lot: 548 - Bamana Chiwara Female Antelope Maternity Crest Headdress with Cowries

West Africa, Mali, Bamana culture. A carved wooden crest headdress of the vertical Chiwara type, presenting a female roan antelope with her fawn perched upon her back. Both animals carry long, tapering muzzles and tall horns incised with running chevrons, their tips wrapped in leather and tufted with horsehair. Sheet metal bands encircle the horns, and cut metal plaques, applied with small tacks, sheathe the faces. Cowrie shells swing from the septa, and pale cotton tassels bloom at the fawn's ears. The whole rides on an openwork basketry-form base pricked with triangular chip-carving. The mother-and-young motif reads as fertility, nurture, and the renewal of the fields, a form danced in male and female pairs to honor cultivation and the collective labor it demands. Chiwara (ci wara, "farming beast") is the mythic being who, in Bamana tradition, taught humanity to till the earth. Headdresses of this type were commissioned by the ci wara ton, the youth association responsible for cultivating the fields, and were danced in pairs at the opening of the agricultural season and at hoeing contests that pitted the strongest farmers against one another. The male, with pierced openwork mane, was understood as the sun; the female, carrying her young, as the earth and the human generations it sustains. Neither performs alone, and the pairing is the point: agriculture as an act of union rather than of individual prowess. Dancers, bent double over staffs and shrouded in dark fiber costume, carried the crests lashed to a woven cap, so that the antelope appeared to graze above the millet. The vertical, elongated form with chevron-incised horns is characteristic of the Bamana heartland north and east of Bamako. Applied metal sheet, cowries, and imported cotton tufts are prestige additions, signaling a headdress kept in active use and periodically re-dressed by its owners. Item # 73414

Lot: 549 - Bamana or Malinke Ntomo Mask with Ten-Prong Comb Crest, Mali

West Africa, Mali, Bamana or Malinke. A tall carved wood face mask crowned by a comb of ten slender vertical projections, each collared with bands of hammered copper alloy. The domed forehead carries a raised central ridge, and cut sheet metal with zigzag edging is pinned across the brow and cheeks in dense rows of dome-headed tacks. Six squared openings pierce the elongated face, flanking a long narrow nose that runs from brow to a small open mouth; curved lateral ears are perforated for attachment. Masks of this Ntomo or Konden type served the first of the Bamana initiation societies, worn in dances that taught boys restraint and silence, the closed or barred mouth reading as the discipline of speech withheld. Warm red-brown surface throughout. Ntomo (also n'domo) was the first of the six Bamana men's initiation societies, or dyow, through which uncircumcised boys passed before entry into adult ritual life. Its masks are conventionally read by the number of crest projections: even numbers are understood as female, odd as male, and other counts as androgynous or as references to Faro, the water spirit of Bamana cosmology. The comb form itself is sometimes glossed as horns, sometimes as the fronds of a headdress. The applied metalwork is not merely decorative. Sheet copper alloy and rows of upholstery tacks were prestige materials in the Western Sudan, applied to masks and figures to signal wealth, to protect the surface, and to catch firelight during nighttime performance. The neighboring Malinke (Maninka) produced closely related types, and attributions between the two peoples are frequently held open where no collection history fixes the village of origin. Item # 73415

Lot: 550 - Baule Lifesize Standing Male Figure with Scarification

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A lifesize standing male carved in dense hardwood, poised in the calm frontality that defines Baule figural sculpture. The right hand is semi-closed around a circular void that once held a cylindrical attribute; the left arm falls easily along the flank. An idealized face of balanced features sits beneath a ridged coiffure gathered into a braided plait, flanked by the large semicircular ears typical of the finest ateliers. Delicate incised scarification runs across cheeks, neck, chest, and abdomen in bands and lozenges. The elongated neck, high buttocks, and athletic musculature embody the Baule ideal of youth, vitality, and composure. Each foot rests on its own integral rectangular platform. Figures of this scale served as spirit-spouse or otherworldly-lover images, likely commissioned as prestige carvings. Baule figural carving divides broadly between blolo bian and blolo bla, the "otherworld husband" and "otherworld wife" summoned by a diviner to resolve trouble in a client's earthly marriage, and asie usu, images housing bush spirits. Both were kept, oiled, and handled privately, which accounts for the deep unctuous surface such pieces acquire. Works at lifesize scale sit outside the ordinary domestic range and are generally understood as prestige commissions from master sculptors.\n\nTwo lifesize Baule figures sharing the same outsized semicircular ears and closely comparable sculptural handling were formerly in the collection of the Fauve painter Maurice de Vlaminck, an early and influential European collector of African art, and sold at Auction Art, Paris; they are recorded in the African Heritage Documentation and Research Centre archive as AHDRC nos. 0058252 and 0059369. The correspondence raises the reasonable possibility of a shared hand or workshop. Item # 73416

Lot: 551 - Baule Gbekre Monkey Figure with Offering Bowl, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A crouching simian guardian carved in dense hardwood, its swollen cranium and protruding muzzle set with globular eyes and squared jaws baring serrated teeth. Both hands cradle a small offering bowl against the chest, the fingers incised in fine parallel grooves. Metal anklets ring the legs and a knotted cloth loincloth girds the hips, while the body rises from an integral disc base with splayed toes. The deep brown-black surface is heavily encrusted, a sacrificial accretion built up through repeated libations and food offerings poured over the figure to invoke, appease, and secure the cooperation of the powerful spirit it houses. Such figures, likely of the Gbekre or Mbotumbo type, stood in shrines rather than in public view. Among the Baule of central Ivory Coast, monkey figures occupy a register apart from the serene, idealized human carvings (blolo bian, blolo bla, asie usu) for which the culture is best known. Where those are polished, composed, and displayed, the simian figures are deliberately aggressive: bared teeth, forward-thrust jaw, a body caked in sacrificial matter. They were kept in enclosed shrines, seen chiefly by their custodians, and fed with palm wine, eggs, blood, and chewed kola. The names attached to them, Gbekre and Mbotumbo, have been used with some looseness in the literature since the earliest European collecting; Gbekre is often cited as a judge of the dead, while Mbotumbo is more plainly the "monkey god" invoked for divination, agricultural fertility, and protection of a lineage or village. The bowl held at the chest is the functional heart of the object: it received the offering, and the crust that spreads from it across the torso is the record of every prior transaction with the spirit. Item # 73417

Lot: 552 - Baule Seated Female Figure with Tiered Coiffure, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A tall carved wood figure sits upright on a four-legged stool, one leg drawn forward, hands folded with meticulously incised fingers across the lap. The ovoid face carries almond eyes beneath arched brows, a small pursed mouth, and a scarified neck, crowned by a tiered, finely striated coiffure that sweeps back in ridged crests. Breasts and rounded abdomen mark the figure as female, the limbs smoothed to a deep, near-black lustrous patina from handling. The composed frontal pose, the seat of office, and the elaborated hairdressing express the Baule ideal of poise and cultivated beauty. Such figures likely served as personal shrine sculptures, perhaps a spirit spouse or an honored court personage. Mounted on a custom display base. Baule carvers of central Ivory Coast produced two closely related classes of standing and seated figures: blolo bla and blolo bian, the "spouse of the other world," commissioned on a diviner's instruction to placate a spirit partner believed to precede the owner in the invisible realm, and asie usu, figures housing bush spirits enlisted by diviners. Both were kept privately, washed, oiled, and rubbed, which accounts for the glossy accretion seen on well-used examples. Beauty was not incidental but functional: a spirit would inhabit only a body worthy of it, so carvers lavished attention on the coiffure, on delicate keloid scarification, and on the calm, downward-lidded gaze that Baule aesthetics equate with self-possession. Seating a figure on a stool amplifies that reading, since stools in Akan-related societies are emblems of status and of the seated soul. Item # 73418

Lot: 553 - Baule Mbotumbo Monkey Figure with Raffia Skirt, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A hulking guardian carved in wood, part man and part ape, its face nearly swallowed by decades of sacrificial crust. The domed cranium tapers to a projecting snout with a squared, gaping mouth; the shoulders slope into bent arms ending in cupped fists, and the columnar legs rest on thick, rounded feet. A raffia fiber skirt is bound at the hips. The entire surface carries a lumpy, blackened patina built from libations of blood, egg, and vegetal matter, the accumulated residue of repeated offerings. Figures of this type, called mbotumbo among the Baule, stood as protective presences within the village and received sacrifice at the opening of the agricultural year. Mounted on a custom base. The mbotumbo, sometimes glossed as the "monkey god" or baboon figure, occupies a register of Baule sculpture wholly apart from the polished, idealized blolo bian and blolo bla spirit spouses. Where those are smoothed and admired, mbotumbo are deliberately coarse, fed rather than displayed, and their aesthetic power resides in the accreted sacrificial matter that obscures the carving beneath. The figures are central to the ceremonial opening of the yam harvest, among the most consequential events in the Baule agricultural calendar. Village communities gather to make offerings: hens whose blood is consecrated to the figure, eggs ritually smashed against its body, seeds and other gifts placed in an accompanying bowl, all invoking fertility, protection, and a fruitful season. Only once these rites have been correctly performed may the farmers eat the new yams. Compare the related figure with one hand in a similar cupped position offered by Zemanek-Munster, Lot 257; see also Marceau Riviere, Les Chefs-d'Oeuvre Africains des Collections Privees Francaises, Paris, 1975, p. 20. Item # 73419

Lot: 554 - Bozo Roulette-Decorated Terracotta Storage Vessel, Mali

West Africa, Mali, probably Bozo. A globular terracotta storage jar of red-brown clay, hand-built and rising to a short flaring neck above a swelling shoulder. Dense roulette impressions sheathe the upper two-thirds in nested arcs and looping bands, the twisted-cord tool rocked across the damp surface to leave a corded, almost textile-like relief. Two small nubbin lugs sit at the shoulder, and the base is slightly flattened for standing in sand or on a mud floor. Fired at low temperature in an open bonfire, vessels of this type served household water storage and grain keeping, the porous walls sweating just enough to cool their contents. The rim carries a burnished sheen from handling and repeated filling. The Bozo are fishing communities of the Inland Niger Delta, long settled along the river between Segou and Mopti, and their potters supply the wider Malian market alongside Somono and Marka neighbors. Roulette decoration, produced by rolling a twisted or braided cord, a knotted fiber string, or a carved wooden cylinder over unfired clay, is one of the oldest and most persistent surface techniques in West Africa, documented archaeologically at Jenne-jeno and in continuous use since. The particular grammar of nested arcs, chevrons, and cascading registers functions as a workshop and regional signature rather than as narrative imagery: a potter's hand can often be recognized from the rhythm of her roulette alone. Item # 73420

Lot: 555 - Bamana Burnished Water Storage Vessel, Mali, Mid 20th C.

West Africa, Mali, Bamana peoples. A near-spherical earthenware jar of generous scale, coil-built and raised on a low footed ring, its walls finished with a warm burnished brown slip. Applied relief ridges worked with fine roulette impressions encircle the shoulder and belly, dividing the body into broad registers, while paired raised nubbins and rays of pinprick stippling ornament the sloping neck below a short everted rim. A black firing cloud drifts across one side, the signature of open-pit firing. Vessels of this form served Bamana households for storing and cooling water, the porous burnished body sweating just enough to chill its contents in the Sahelian heat. Bamana pottery is made by women, most of them wives or daughters of blacksmiths, within the endogamous numu caste whose men work iron and wood. The vessels are built by hand, without a wheel, then dried and fired in shallow open pits of grass and dung, a process that leaves the dark bloom of reduction clouds prized as evidence of authenticity. Burnishing with a smooth pebble before firing compacts the surface and slows evaporation, converting the pot into a passive cooler. Water jars of this scale sat in the shaded interior of a compound, replenished daily and often reserved for guests, making the potter's ornament a matter of household standing as much as decoration. Item # 73421

Lot: 556 - Baule Standing Male Figure with Scarification and Crested Coiffure, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A standing male figure carved from a single block of dark, hand-rubbed wood, rising from an integral disc base on broad feet with articulated toes. The columnar legs swell at the calf, the hands rest in low relief against the abdomen, and the elongated neck carries a head of characteristic refinement: lentoid eyes beneath arched brows, a narrow nose, and lips touched with red pigment. Raised scarification marks the temples, cheeks, and nape, and the coiffure is dressed into a high sagittal crest with lobed plaits behind. Such figures were commissioned from master carvers as idealized human portraits, likely a spirit spouse (blolo bian) or an attendant to a possession diviner, kept, oiled, and handled rather than displayed. Baule sculpture from the central Ivory Coast is measured by an aesthetic standard the Baule themselves name: a figure should be finished, composed, and beautiful enough that a spirit would consent to inhabit it. Two carved genres dominate. The blolo bian and blolo bla, the "otherworld husband" and "otherworld wife", answer the belief that each person left a spouse behind in the spirit world; a diviner prescribes the figure, which is then fed, anointed with oil, and slept beside to settle a marital or fertility grievance. The asie usu, bush-spirit figures, serve trance diviners instead. Both are private objects, kept wrapped in a sleeping chamber, which accounts for the deep unctuous surfaces prized on old examples. Scarification patterns, the crested coiffure, and the calm downcast gaze are conventions of Baule ideal beauty rather than the likeness of any individual. Jean-Paul Delcourt assembled his Ivory Coast material while resident in Abidjan, during the decades when such pieces were still moving out of village use. Item # 73422

Lot: 557 - Baule Kpan Goli Mask with Multi-Lobed Coiffure, Ivory Coast, 20th C.

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A serene carved wood face mask from the Goli masquerade, its oval visage crowned by a high, multi-lobed coiffure incised with fine parallel striations. The brow arches over downcast lidded eyes, the slotted pupils and open oval mouth bearing traces of kaolin, and serrated teeth catch the light within. Relief whisker-like scarifications flank a slender ridged nose, while a striated beard encircles the lower face and small tabbed ears project at the sides. The reverse is deeply hollowed and the rim pierced for attachment, confirming use in performance. Layered red-brown pigment and blackened deposits enrich the surface. The Kpan type embodies ideals of beauty, dignity, and social accord. Goli is a day-long Baule masquerade borrowed in the early twentieth century from their Wan neighbors and rapidly absorbed into village life, danced at funerals, harvest festivals, and visits of honored guests. Its four paired masks appear in fixed sequence, from the disc-faced, horned kple kple that opens the performance to the refined human-faced kpan that closes it. Kpan, the senior female mask, is the aesthetic summit of the cycle: a composed, downcast face, elaborately dressed hair, and delicately incised scarification, all conforming to Baule ideals of beauty and restraint. The masks are danced by men, accompanied by song and drum, while the carved features are understood less as portraiture than as a distillation of communal order. Item # 73423

Lot: 558 - Baule Blolo Bian Male Spirit Spouse Figure, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule. A carved hardwood male figure of the type known as blolo bian, the otherworld husband. Standing frontally on an integral disc base, the body is smoothly modeled with defined clavicles, a slightly rounded abdomen, and large articulated hands framing the navel. The head is dominated by heavy-lidded almond eyes, a narrow ridged nose, and full parted lips, all set beneath a crested coiffure of finely combed ridges gathered into a swept crest, with coiled ears at the sides. Delicate raised scarification patterns cross the forehead, temples, cheeks, and neck. The wood carries a deep red-brown patina with light surface deposits. Such figures were commissioned from a diviner and kept in the household, honored with offerings and attention to secure harmony with a spouse believed to reside in the spirit world. Baule belief holds that every person had a spouse in blolo, the world of spirits, before birth. When misfortune, marital discord, or infertility troubles a household, a diviner may prescribe the carving of a spirit-spouse figure: blolo bian for a woman, blolo bla for a man. The sculpture is not a portrait but an ideal, embodying the qualities the Baule prize in a person: composure, physical refinement, elaborate grooming, and a downcast, contemplative gaze. Its owner keeps it in a private place, washing, oiling, clothing, and sleeping near it on appointed nights, which accounts for the lustrous, deeply saturated surfaces seen on well-used examples. The carved coiffure, scarification, and attention to hands and feet register status and beauty, the visible marks of a properly cultivated life. Item # 73424

Lot: 559 - Baule or Guro Face Mask with Elaborate Crested Coiffure, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule or Guro peoples. A serene female visage carved from a single block of hardwood, crowned by an architectural coiffure of rounded lobes rising to a high, transversely tapered central crest. The oval face is finely modeled: arched brows over half-closed lidded eyes, a long narrow nose, and a small squared open mouth showing tiny teeth, set slightly off center. A raised hairline band and delicate incised scarification marks pattern the brow. Deep black patina, worn mellow through handling, contrasts with the reddish-brown reserve of the reverse. Masks of this type portray idealized beauty and are danced in entertainment and commemorative performances honoring admired members of the community. Mounted on a custom base. Baule and Guro carving traditions of central Ivory Coast are closely intertwined, and portrait masks of this refined type circulate between them: the Baule ndoma ("double") celebrates a specific admired individual, while Guro carvers supplied comparable idealized faces for the gye and zamble complexes. Both share the vocabulary visible here, elongated oval face, downcast lidded eyes signaling composure, sculpted coiffure standing in for social standing, and the fine keloid scarification that once marked lineage and beauty on living skin. Such masks appear at commemorative dances and festive gatherings, where the wearer imitates the bearing of the honored person while musicians call out their name. The attribution between the two peoples remains open; the crested coiffure and treatment of the mouth argue for a Baule hand, but Guro workshops in the border districts produced closely related work. Item # 73425

Lot: 560 - We Guere Spirit Mask with Tubular Eyes, Horns and Tusks, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, We (Guere) culture. A carved wood face conceived as a bundle of animal powers: two sets of upswept horns rise from the forehead, tubular eyes project beneath narrow slit openings, and a pair of tusks juts horizontally above an open mouth set with cut metal teeth. The surface carries a dark brown-black crust of accreted sacrificial deposits, with traces of red and white pigment on horns, nose, and eyes, and a fragment of red cloth lodged in the mouth. A metal nail driven into the crown was added to charge the mask further. Danced in masquerades that adjudicate disputes, police behavior, and confront the forest spirits, such faces were meant to be terrifying, their aggression an instrument of social order rather than mere ornament. The We (also written Wee) peoples of western Ivory Coast and adjacent Liberia, known in the older literature as Guere and Ngere, produce some of the most forceful masks in West Africa. Rather than idealizing the human face, We carvers assemble it from borrowed potencies: warthog tusks, antelope or buffalo horns, protruding eyes drawn from the bush cow. The resulting spirit, or ge, is not a portrait but a presence, activated in performance by costume, raffia, sound, and the accumulated matter of repeated offerings that hardens into the encrusted patina prized on genuinely used examples. Nails, tacks, teeth, and applied cloth are not decorative afterthoughts but additive charging: each insertion is understood to increase the mask's efficacy. Such masks served judicial and regulatory roles within men's associations, appearing to settle quarrels, enforce prohibitions, and mark funerals of important men. Item # 73426

Lot: 561 - Guro Gu Mask, Red Painted Female Face with Tripartite Coiffure, Ivory Coast

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Guro peoples. A carved wood face mask painted a saturated red, portraying the idealized beauty of a young woman. The oval visage narrows to a small pointed chin beneath a long, delicately ridged nose and parted lips; slender arched brows and heavy lids frame gently downcast eyes, giving a serene, composed expression. Above rises an elaborate tripartite coiffure, blackened and finely striated, with openwork plaiting at the rear. Pierced at the perimeter and fitted with rubber ties for securing to the wearer, it served in Guro entertainment masquerades, where dancers accompanied by song and drum embodied feminine grace and social ideals rather than fearsome spirits. Among the Guro of central Ivory Coast, the graceful female face mask (often grouped with the gu type) belongs to a family of performances that pair a beautiful human countenance with more animalistic partners, notably the zamble and zauli masks. The beauty mask embodies the ideal of the marriageable young woman: composure, downcast modesty, a carefully dressed coiffure. The elaborate plaited hairstyle is not invention but portraiture of fashion, and its rendering in blackened relief against the red of the face is the sculptor's principal display of skill. Guro carvers were widely admired across the region, and their refined naturalism influenced neighboring Baule and Yaure workshops, a stylistic conversation that makes precise attribution among the three a matter of connoisseurship. Item # 73427

Lot: 562 - Mende Bundu Sowei Helmet Mask with Tripartite Coiffure

West Africa, Sierra Leone, Mende. A carved wood helmet mask of Bundu type, its dome crowned by an elegant tripartite coiffure of finely striated plaited lobes rising to a squared, domed finial, beneath which original fiber wrapping survives. The face presents a high rounded forehead, downcast semicircular eye slits under repeating arched brows, a narrow ridged nose, small pursed mouth, and a cross-shaped scarification mark on the cheek. Stacked rolls of flesh encircle the neck, an idiom of health, prosperity, and ideal feminine beauty. Pierced along the lower rim for the raffia and cloth costume that concealed the dancer entirely. Worn over the head by a senior woman of the Sande association, the mask embodied the tutelary water spirit who presided over girls' initiation. Deep medium brown patina. Custom base. Among the Mende of Sierra Leone and their Vai and Sherbro neighbors, the sowei helmet mask is the best-known instance in Africa of a masquerade owned, carved for, and danced by women. The Sande (Bundu) association governs the initiation of girls into adulthood, and its senior officials appear as Sowo, the spirit who rises from the water, her blackened surface glossy as a river's skin. Every element of the face is a lesson in comportment: the lowered, slitted eyes counsel modesty and inward vision, the small mouth counsels discretion, the elaborate coiffure signals the care and communal labor that grooming demands, and the ringed neck reads simultaneously as rippling water and as the well-fed body of a prosperous woman. The finial, here a squared cap above the plaited lobes, functions as an individuating emblem that distinguishes one sowei from another. Item # 73428

Lot: 563 - Dan Deangle Mask, Carved Wood Face Mask, Ivory Coast, Early to Mid 20th C.

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Dan peoples. A serene oval face carved in dense hardwood, its features pared to the Dan ideal of composed beauty. The high domed forehead is divided by a subtle median ridge; narrow slit eyes open beneath arched brows, the nose is slender with flaring nostrils, and full parted lips close over a delicately pointed chin. Small ears are rendered in crisp relief, and a rim of attachment holes rings the perimeter for the raffia and cloth costume once lashed to it. Traces of white pigment survive around the eyes, and the surface carries a deep russet to near-black patina from handling and use. Masks of this gentle, feminine cast, most often identified as deangle, danced in village entertainments and in the initiation of boys. Custom base. Dan masking is not a single institution but a graded society of spirits, each with its own voice, gait, and mandate. The gentle-featured type, deangle, embodies a benevolent female forest spirit and serves the men's initiation camp (the bush school), carrying food to the initiates, mediating between camp and village, and appearing at entertainments and dances. Its aesthetic vocabulary, oval face, unbroken planes, slit or narrowed eyes, was described by Dan carvers themselves as an ideal of human beauty, and it stands in deliberate contrast to the bulging-eyed, tusked masks (bugle, gunye ge) associated with masculine force and social control. Masks were owned, named, fed, and inherited; a mask that had proven its power was repaired rather than replaced. Old breaks along the upper edge answered with fresh perforations, as here, are the physical record of a mask kept in service across generations. Item # 73429

Lot: 564 - Dan Maou Bird-Beak Spirit Mask, Ivory Coast, 20th C.

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Dan peoples. A carved wood spirit face fused with a bird, its ovoid visage tapering into a long, downswept beak that hangs well below the chin. Slit eyes and arched brows are set in a domed forehead; strips of metal sheath the central ridge from crown to beak tip and outline the eyes. Incised motifs run along the beak's flanks, and thick crusted sacrificial accretions layer the face and upper beak, residue of repeated ceremonial offerings. Pierced rim holes once secured a costume of fiber and cloth. The beaked form evokes a hornbill-like forest spirit associated with vigilance and hidden knowledge; masks of this type served the Koma association in detecting and punishing sorcery. Among the Dan of western Ivory Coast and neighboring Liberia, masks are not costumes but embodiments: each is the visible body of a du, a spirit force that enters the village through a masked performer and speaks with authority no living person holds. The repertoire ranges from the serene, oval-faced feminine deangle to aggressive, distorted forms charged with judicial power. The bird-beaked Maou belongs firmly to the latter register, its avian projection marking it as a creature of the bush rather than the compound, and its enforcement role placing it among the masks that adjudicate rather than entertain.\n\nThe encrusted surface is itself a record of that office. Successive libations of palm oil, blood, kola, and vegetal matter build into a stratified patina that Dan practice treats as accumulated potency: a mask grows stronger, not dirtier, with use. Metal appliques along the facial ridge are a further mark of consequence, reserved for masks of standing within their association. Item # 73430

Lot: 565 - Dan Zakpai Style Mask with Metal-Rimmed Eyes and Red Cloth Band

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Dan culture. A carved wooden face mask of the northern Dan type, possibly a Zakpai fire-watcher mask. The high domed forehead sweeps into an ovoid face, its blackened surface polished to a deep reddish patina. Circular pierced eyes are rimmed with sheet metal and framed by a band of red cloth drawn across the brow; the open mouth, lips wrapped in the same red fabric, bares inserted metal teeth beneath a grooved philtrum. A metal nail is set into the crown. Masks of this class were danced by Poro-initiated men, the Zakpai policing cooking fires in the dry season and enforcing village order through spectacle and mock aggression. Among the Dan of the Ivory Coast and Liberia, masks are not costumes but embodiments: each gives visible form to a spirit (gle) that has appeared to a dreamer and demands to be brought into the world. Function, not shape alone, defines a mask's identity, and a single face can be promoted through a sequence of roles over its working life. The zakpai gle belongs to the fire-prevention office, sent out at midday in the dry season to extinguish unattended hearths, a duty enforced with theatrical menace by a masker who runs, shouts, and scatters the careless. The aggressive register of the type accounts for the wide tubular eyes, which signal the piercing sight of a spirit, and for the bared teeth. Applied cloth, metal, and accreted offerings on Dan masks accumulate through use; they are records of service rather than decoration. Item # 73431

Lot: 566 - Baule Janiform Fly Whisk Handle with Plaited Coiffures

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Baule culture. A hardwood whisk handle crowned by two opposed faces, each carved with the long ovoid visage, arched brows, downcast lidded eyes and small full lips of idealized Baule beauty. Ridged plaited coiffures frame both heads, and delicate incised scarification runs along the hairlines and temples. Below the necks, a banded openwork cage of turned struts separates the sculpted terminal from a grip sheathed in leather and secured with studs. The dark heads carry a deep lustrous patina; the shaft has worn to a warm medium brown through handling. Fly whisks of this type served as prestige regalia, carried by chiefs, dignitaries, and diviners as emblems of rank and authority. Baule figural aesthetics turn on a shared canon of refinement: the high domed forehead, the bulging brow ridge, the eyes lowered in composed reserve, and the elaborately dressed coiffure that signals both fashion and social standing. Carvers worked to the standard of nyamane, a beauty at once physical and moral, and the same vocabulary appears across their portrait figures, masks, heddle pulleys, and regalia. The janiform, or two-faced, format carries its own charge in Akan-related thought, evoking vigilance in both directions, and by extension the diviner or officeholder who sees what others cannot. Whisks themselves, mounted with animal-hair tails now absent, were swept in dance and oratory to disperse harmful influences as much as flies, functioning as portable insignia of office within the courts of the Ivory Coast interior. Item # 73432

Lot: 567 - Dan Deangle Spirit Mask with Metal-Lined Slit Eyes, West Africa

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Dan peoples. A serene oval face carved in wood, its brow divided by a raised central ridge that runs from a notched, saw-toothed hairline to the bridge of a narrow nose. The slit eyes are lined with strips of white metal, a rare embellishment that catches light across the polished planes of the cheeks, and a single metal tooth survives in the parted lips above a tapering pointed chin. Pierced holes along the perimeter once secured a raffia or cloth coiffure and costume. Masks of this refined, idealized female type, likely a deangle, served the Dan as embodiments of forest spirits, appearing in initiation, entertainment, and social mediation performances rather than as inert sculpture. Among the Dan of western Ivory Coast and neighboring Liberia, masks are not representations but residences: a spirit (gle or ge) is understood to dwell in the carved face and to act through the masker who wears it. The gentler, smooth-featured masks with narrow slit eyes belong to the deangle class, associated with the boys' initiation camp, where they mediated between initiates and the village, begged food, danced, and mediated disputes. Their delicate features embody the Dan ideal of feminine beauty even when worn exclusively by men.\n\nThe inlaid metal along the eye slits and the surviving metal tooth are additions of prestige and enhancement, applied to sharpen the mask's gaze and grin. Interior wear and the ring of attachment holes indicate a piece made for use, not for display. Item # 73433

Lot: 568 - Senufo Hornbill Heddle Pulley, Ivory Coast, Carved Wood Weaving Implement

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Senufo culture. A loom pulley carved as a hornbill fused with a human body, the two natures resolved into one taut vertical. A spherical head with central crest crowns a long tapering beak that sweeps down against the torso, while arched arms open into triangular voids and legs splay into a wide inverted U pierced for the pulley's axle. A short tail projects at the reverse. The wood carries a warm medium-brown patina, burnished red-brown across head and beak, darkened along the limbs from handling. Suspended above a weaver's loom, such pulleys guided the heddle cords; among the Senufo the hornbill carries associations of wisdom and fertility, lending a working tool the weight of ancestral imagery. Mounted on a custom base. The hornbill (setien) is one of the five primordial creatures of Senufo cosmology, credited with delivering knowledge to the first people, and its silhouette recurs throughout the arts of the Poro initiation society, most famously in the monumental winged porpianong figures. Men's weaving was a specialist occupation among the Senufo and their Dyula neighbors, and the heddle pulley, though strictly functional, became the loom's ornament: each carver individualized a small suspended sculpture that turned with the shuttle's rhythm all day long. The distinctive burnish on these pieces comes from decades of hands, cords, and cotton dust rather than from applied finish. Item # 73434

Lot: 569 - Ashanti Akuaba Fertility Figure with Carved Pictographic Disc Head

West Africa, Ghana, Ashanti (Asante). A carved wood akuaba whose broad disc head narrows to a knife-thin edge, its polished face reduced to arched brows, a ridged nose, and a small pursed mouth. The reverse of the disc carries an unusually ambitious relief: a crosshatched field peopled with figures, birds, and vessels, apparently relating a known Ashanti folktale. Stacked rings encircle the columnar neck, a small square scarification marks the chest, and a node projects from the back. Rod arms extend from a cylindrical torso above a bulbous base. Blue and white beads ring the neck, red beads the base. Its weight suggests it was never meant to be carried in the waistcloth of an expectant mother, perhaps serving instead as a shrine image or a carver's model. The akuaba takes its name from Akua, a woman of Asante tradition who could not conceive and was instructed by a priest to commission and care for a small wooden child. Her neighbors mocked the doll as "Akua's child," Akua ba, until she bore a daughter and the ridicule became a name. Women thereafter carried such figures on the back or in the waistcloth, feeding, washing, and adorning them with beads to secure a healthy pregnancy and, by the canon of Asante beauty, a child with a high flat forehead and a long ringed neck (the rings read as the folds of a well-fed infant). The relief carving across the reverse of the disc is atypical; most akuaba leave the back plain or lightly incised. Narrative imagery of this density belongs to the same visual vocabulary as Akan proverb weights and linguist staffs, where each object stands for a spoken saying. Identification of the specific tale would benefit from comparison with published gold-weight proverb corpora. Item # 73435

Lot: 570 - Senufo Bangoro Go Face Mask, Northern Ivory Coast, Early to Mid 20th C.

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Senufo peoples. A carved wood face mask of severe abstraction, its long ovoid plane rising to a domed, faceted forehead. A blade-like nasal ridge runs the full length of the face, terminating in sharply flared nostrils, and divides two small rectangular eye apertures set beneath a straight browline. Small squared perforations pierce the rim for the attachment of a costume. The surface carries a warm, dry patina with tool facets still legible across the crown. Identified as a "bangoro go" mask, a type worn horizontally atop the head rather than over the face, associated with Senufo men's association performance in the northern Ivory Coast. Senufo masking is organized around the Poro men's associations, whose graded initiations govern the passage from boyhood to full social adulthood and whose masquerades appear at funerals, commemorative rites, and the disciplinary occasions that police village conduct. Within that repertoire, the reductive planar masks stand apart from the better-known kpelie face masks and the great composite helmet forms: here the sculptor has stripped the human face to its geometric armature, a dome, a ridge, two rectangles, achieving a formal economy that drew European modernists to West African carving in the first decades of the last century. The horizontal wearing position, with the mask tilted back on the crown and the dancer's view screened by fiber, changes the sightline entirely, presenting the face to the sky and to the spirits addressed rather than to the assembled audience. Item # 73436

Lot: 571 - Senufo Miniature Wanyugo Firespitter Helmet Mask, Ivory Coast, 20th C.

West Africa, Ivory Coast, Senufo. A ferocious little janiform helmet, carved in hardwood as a reduced model of the Senufo "wanyugo" firespitter. Two opposing zoomorphic muzzles, gaping and serrated with rows of triangular teeth, share a single domed cranium set with large pointed ears and a crested ridge running the crown. Curved warthog tusks spring from the jaw corners and from above each upper snout, compounding the composite creature of hyena, crocodile, and antelope. The surface carries a medium brown patina with residues of blackened pigment. Miniatures of this type were not danced but carved as demonstration pieces, showing a blacksmith-carver's command of the form to patrons and initiates. Among the Senufo of northern Ivory Coast and southern Mali, the helmet masks known as wanyugo (or kponyugo) belong to the men's Poro society and to the Lo initiation grades that regulate its knowledge. Danced at funerals and at purification rites, they were understood to devour witchcraft and hostile spirits, and embers or smouldering tinder were sometimes carried in the jaws so that sparks issued from the mouth as the masker moved, the source of the collectors' name "firespitter".\n\nThe forms are deliberately composite: hyena snout, crocodile teeth, antelope or buffalo horns, and warthog tusks fused into a being belonging to no single species and therefore to no ordinary order of the world. Carving fell to the kule woodworkers and to blacksmith lineages, whose control of fire and transformation made them appropriate makers of an object that consumed danger. Item # 73437

Lot: 572 - Dan or We Guere Anklets, Pair, Noded C-Form Prestige Currency, West Africa

West Africa, Ivory Coast / Liberia, Dan or We Guere. A pair of massive cast anklets, each a hollow C of copper alloy whose outer edge is ringed with bold spherical nodes like a row of fruit. The bodies are ribbed in concentric registers, tapering to squared terminals, with small casting apertures on one face and surfaces ranging from warm russet brown to near black, flecked with green oxidation. Ornaments of this weight and scale were leg jewelry rather than currency alone, heated and hammered shut around a cloth-wrapped ankle so that removal was all but impossible. Worn by the senior wife of a prosperous man, they declared his wealth twice over: in the metal itself, and in the visible fact that a woman so encumbered was not needed for field labor. Mounted on custom bases. Among the Dan and neighboring We (Guere/Kran) peoples of the Ivory Coast and Liberian forest belt, heavy cast leg rings of this type belonged to a broader West African economy in which copper alloy served simultaneously as ornament, store of value, and public ledger of standing. Individual examples could weigh seven or eight pounds. William C. Siegmann and Cynthia E. Schmidt described a closely related anklet in "Rock of the Ancestors" (Cuttington University College, Suacoco, Liberia, 1977), recording the practice of wrapping the leg in cloth, seating the heated ring, and hammering it closed, a procedure that made the ornament effectively permanent. The nodded outer edge is a signature of the regional casting tradition, the bosses raised in the wax model before investment and pour. Item # 73438

Lot: 573 - Nuna Gurunsi Studded Cuff Bracelet with Mushroom Bosses, Burkina Faso

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Nuna Gurunsi peoples. A heavy C-shaped cuff cast in copper alloy, its outer curve bristling with two staggered rows of domed, mushroom-headed projections that catch light against a green-brown surface. The flared terminals are finished with fan-like semicircular relief, a small flourish of engraving on an otherwise sculptural, weighty form. Such open-ring bracelets were cast by the lost-wax method and worn on the wrist or upper arm as personal ornament and portable wealth, marking status within the community and serving, like much West African cast metalwork, as an exchangeable store of value. The studded profile is both decorative and assertive, extending the wearer's silhouette. Presented on a custom display base. The Nuna are one of the Gurunsi-speaking peoples of central and southern Burkina Faso, best known internationally for their plank masks but equally accomplished in small-scale cast metalwork produced by hereditary smiths. In this region the smith occupied an ambiguous and powerful social position, working a material believed to carry its own force, and casting was undertaken for ornament, for divination objects, and for currency-like forms that circulated well beyond the community that made them.\n\nThe piece comes from the collection of Wilfried Glar, a German specialist and author on sub-Saharan cast metalwork whose publications helped establish the typologies by which West African bracelets, anklets, and currency forms are classified today. Item # 73439

Lot: 574 - Owo Yoruba Copper Alloy Bells with Faces, Group of Three

West Africa, Nigeria, Owo Yoruba. A trio of cast bells of tapering pyramidal form, each rising to an arched strap handle above a flaring, textured basal band. Human faces emerge in low relief on their sloping walls: a broad visage with lidded eyes, banded coiffure and framing arms on the largest, opposing faces with cowrie-shaped eyes and braided features on the middle example, and a spare, minimally modeled countenance on the smallest, which alone preserves its clapper. Matting and roulette-like hatching enliven the collars and hems, contrasting with the burnished planes of the bodies. Bells of this type were placed upon altars and suspended from the small of the back by dancers, their voices summoning attention and marking the rhythm of ceremonial movement. Owo, the Yoruba town positioned between Ife to the west and the Benin kingdom to the east, produced an art that borrows freely from both: the idealized, serene facial canon of Ife married to Benin's appetite for cast metal regalia and dense surface pattern. The hatched and matted grounds seen here are a hallmark of that Edo-Yoruba border idiom. Cast metal bells occupy a particular place in West African ritual sound. Their carrying tone is understood less as music than as address, a means of calling ancestors, tutelary spirits, or the honored dead to attend an offering. Mounted at the waist, they turn the dancer's body into the instrument, so that the summons is produced by movement itself rather than by a separate player. Item # 73440

Lot: 575 - Lobi Cast Pendant Amulets, Group of 3, Burkina Faso

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Lobi culture. A trio of lost-wax cast copper alloy pendants, each a small essay in line and silhouette. The first is a circular loop incised with crosshatch and concentric spirals, three flaring bell-form drops swinging below a suspension ring. The second is an openwork band of stylized quadrupeds in single file, legs interlaced into a continuous frieze. The third is an abstract composition of paired loops flanking faceted, tapering points. Surfaces range from warm reddish tone to green oxidation, with textured chevron and net patterning on the raised elements. Worn on the body as protective amulets and markers of status, such ornaments were commissioned from itinerant casters and carried personal, divinatory significance. Each mounted on a custom display base. Lobi metalwork sits at the intersection of adornment and belief. Cast by specialist smiths using the lost-wax method, small copper alloy pendants circulated as personal protective devices, often prescribed by a diviner in response to a specific misfortune and worn against the skin or attached to a garment or bag. Animal imagery, particularly the file of quadrupeds seen here, is a recurrent motif whose reading shifts with context: prosperity, fertility, or the tutelary presence of a bush spirit (thil). Bell-form drops introduce sound, an active rather than merely decorative property in amuletic practice. Copper alloy remained a prestige material across the Black Volta region, imported and recycled rather than locally smelted, which lent these compact ornaments a value out of proportion to their size. Item # 73441

Lot: 576 - Bwa Nuna Copper Alloy Crocodile and Bird Pendants, Burkina Faso

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Bwa and Nuna peoples. A pair of cast copper alloy amulets, each a small charged emblem carried close to the body. The crocodile is worked flat, its stubby limbs curling outward, bulging eyes the only relief on a frontal surface densely incised with crosshatching, with a looped suspension node cast on the reverse. Its companion, attributed to the Bwa or Nuna, reduces a bird to a crescent of spread wings beneath a knobbed head, the central spine banded with concentric spirals. Such pendants functioned protectively rather than ornamentally, commissioned through a diviner and worn as a petition to a family's tutelary spirit. Each is mounted on a custom display base. Among the Bwa and Nuna of central Burkina Faso, small cast pendants of this type belong to the apparatus of divination rather than to personal adornment. A related bird pendant from the Thomas G. B. Wheelock collection is published in Alisa LaGamma, "Art and Oracle: African Art and Rituals of Divination", no. 38, p. 62, where LaGamma notes that such works were made to aid women afflicted with reproductive illness: a diviner would direct the client to petition her family's protective spirit for a cure, and the cast emblem gave that petition physical form. The crocodile is a recurring guardian in the Volta basin, an animal of the threshold between water and land and, in many local traditions, a clan totem whose killing is forbidden. Both pieces were made by lost-wax casting, the crosshatched skin of the crocodile impressed into the wax model before investment, a technique that leaves the textile-like grid visible across the finished surface. Item # 73442

Lot: 577 - Mossi Carved Wood Female Ancestor Figure "Ninana", Burkina Faso

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Mossi peoples. A tall standing female figure carved from a single hardwood block, known as "Ninana" and representing an idealized ancestress. A short central crest rises above a gently concave face with a slender ridged nose, incised temple striations, and prominent flaring relief ears. The elongated torso carries delicate chevron scarification down the sternum and banded incisions across the abdomen, with conical breasts, defined genitalia, and long, subtly flexed legs above blocky feet. The arms hang free of the body in flattened planes. Such figures served lineage shrines, where they likely embodied ancestral presence and the continuity of fertility within the household. The wood has darkened to a dry brown patina with pale mineral deposits settled in the carved recesses. The Mossi of the Burkinabe central plateau built their kingdoms in the 15th century atop earlier Nyonyose farming populations, and their sculpture reflects that layering: the ruling Nakomse commissioned figures asserting political legitimacy, while the Nyonyose kept ancestral and earth-spirit imagery tied to the land itself. Standing figures of this type were kept in lineage shrines, brought out for seasonal rites, and anointed with libations that build the dry, deposit-flecked surface seen here. Regional carving styles differ sharply, from the crested, concave-faced figures of the Yatenga north to the more compact Ouagadougou forms, and the elongated proportions and vertical crest here point toward the northern workshops. Item # 73443

Lot: 578 - Nuna or Bwa Buffalo Mask with Oxpecker Bird, Burkina Faso, 20th C.

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Nuna or Bwa peoples. A buffalo mask whose vast crescent horns sweep upward into a near-closed ring, framing an oxpecker bird perched alert on the animal's brow. The wood is carved in bold planes: bulging concentric eyes, a squared blocky muzzle set with triangular teeth, and cheeks incised with lozenges, chevrons, and clan motifs picked out in red ochre, white, and black pigment. The bird is separately carved and pegged in place. A fibre and textile grip inside the hollowed dome allowed the dancer to bite and steady the mask in performance. Such animal masks embody bush spirits addressed at funerals, initiations, and market-season festivals, and the oxpecker riding the buffalo makes visible the symbiosis between spirit and human worlds. Among the Nuna and their Bwa neighbors of central Burkina Faso, animal masks carry distinct personalities and origin myths. Their forms recall episodes in the lives of founding ancestors who, in seasons of hardship, were aided by spirit animals; the mask renews that pact each time it dances. The geometric fields covering the face are not ornament alone but a graphic code of clan and initiation signs, read by those who have passed through the bush school. A closely related buffalo mask surmounted by an oxpecker is published in "A Sense of Wonder: African Art from the Faletti Family Collection", Phoenix Art Museum, 1997, no. 5, pp. 56-57, where the motif is described as demonstrating the carver's ingenuity in rendering the symbiotic relationship between spirits and people. Item # 73444

Lot: 579 - Nunuma Ram Mask with Curved Horns, Burkina Faso, 20th C.

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Nunuma culture. A ram rendered in wood with unapologetic force: sweeping horns curl back from the crown, concentric-ringed eyes bulge above a long projecting snout, and small ears jut from the temples. The surface is incised throughout with chevrons, bands, and triangles, the recesses charged with black pigment, red ochre, and white kaolin in the tricolor scheme favored across the Voltaic mask traditions. The hollowed reverse retains its fiber bite cord, evidence of long wear in performance. Such masks embody bush spirits invoked at funerals, initiations, and agricultural rites, the wearer moving under a fiber costume while the animal's authority is called into the village. The Nunuma belong to the Gurunsi-speaking peoples of west-central Burkina Faso, close neighbors of the Nuna, Winiama, and Bwa, with whom they share a masking vocabulary built on flat planes, deeply incised geometry, and the red-black-white triad. Each mask personifies a particular spirit that entered into a covenant with a founding lineage; the graphic patterning is not ornament but a coded record of the moral instruction given to initiates, legible to those who have passed through the bush school and opaque to those who have not.\n\nThe ram is among the most potent of these zoomorphic spirits, associated with virility, stubbornness, and protective aggression. Masks appear at funerals of elders, at initiation, at market days, and at rites keyed to the agricultural calendar, danced with a full fiber costume that conceals the performer entirely. Item # 73445

Lot: 580 - Bwa or Nunuma Antelope Bush Spirit Mask, Burkina Faso

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Bwa or Nunuma peoples. A bush spirit mask carved as an antelope, its deeply hollowed oval face rising to a domed brow set with concentric bulging eyes and a long projecting triangular snout. Tall paired horns sweep back in a taut curve, their surfaces cut with dense ridged chevrons, while blade-like ears flank the head. The abstracted planes carry engraved geometric registers, zigzags, nested chevrons, and sawtooth borders, picked out in black, red, and white earth pigments. Remnants of braided fiber cordage survive inside the hollow, once securing the mask to the dancer. Such masks embody the wilderness spirits invoked at initiations, funerals, and agricultural rites, where the wearer's costume of fiber completes the transformation. Among the Bwa and their Gurunsi-speaking neighbors the Nunuma, wooden masks of this type belong to clan lineages and personify the bush spirits who mediate between the village and the uncultivated wilderness beyond it. The graphic vocabulary carved into the face, concentric circles, zigzags, checkerboards, and hooked chevrons, is not ornament but a mnemonic code: each sign carries a lesson delivered to initiates during their seclusion in the bush, and the black, white, and red pigments distinguish the registers of that teaching. Masks appear at funerals, at initiations, at market-day celebrations, and at the annual rites that open the agricultural season, danced with a full costume of dyed hemp fiber that conceals the performer entirely. The two traditions are stylistically close and frequently confused in the literature, hence the dual attribution retained here. Item # 73446

Lot: 581 - Sokoto Terracotta Head of a Bearded Dignitary

West Africa, Nigeria, Sokoto culture. A hollow-built head of gray-brown terracotta, near lifesize, portraying a bearded man of evident rank. The heavy-lidded eyes are carved as broad crescents filled with cross-hatched texture, their small drilled pupils reduced to pinpricks beneath; a wide nose with pierced nostrils and pursed lips with a bow-shaped upper edge complete the face, and a narrow tapering beard drops from the chin. The coiffure sweeps back into five parallel lobes over a finely incised cross-hatched cap. Coil-raised and thickly grogged, the walls were vented so the head could survive firing at scale. Such heads likely crowned full figures set in funerary or commemorative contexts, portraits of leaders or courtiers rather than deities. The Sokoto tradition takes its name from the river valley of northwestern Nigeria where its terracottas first surfaced in the 1990s, and it belongs to the broad Nok cultural horizon of the first millennium BCE and the early first millennium CE. Sokoto sculptors are distinguished from their Nok contemporaries by a taste for geometric abstraction: the eye reduced to a lens or crescent rather than the Nok triangle, brows and lids rendered as raised ridges, and coiffures resolved into rhythmic lobes and hatched panels. Beards and elaborate hairdressing signal status, and the perforations at eyes, nostrils, and mouth served the practical end of equalizing pressure during an open firing as much as any symbolic one. Because so few examples come from controlled excavation, the chronology remains broad, and thermoluminescence testing is the standard means of narrowing it. Item # 73447

Lot: 582 - Nok Terracotta Head with Crested Coiffure, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Nok culture. A terracotta head modeled in coarse, grit-tempered orange clay, its features pared to essentials and its coiffure anything but. Node-shaped nubs ring the hairline beneath a tall crested topknot, with grooved bands sweeping back and combed strands running down the nape. The face presents wide-set ovate eyes pierced with hollowed pupils, arched brows in low relief, a broad nose, deeply hollowed ears, and full puckered lips. Once part of a larger hollow figure, the head likely represented an elite or ancestral personage, perhaps a court dignitary, and probably served a commemorative or funerary role on the Jos Plateau. The Nok culture, named for the Jos Plateau village where the first terracottas surfaced in tin-mining gravels in 1928, produced the earliest known figurative sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. Its artists built near life-size hollow figures by coiling and modeling a coarse, gravel-rich clay, then fired them at relatively low temperature; the sculptures were finished with burnishing and slip that erosion has usually stripped away. Nok heads are distinguished by their triangular or D-shaped eyes with drilled pupils, perforated nostrils and ears (technical necessities during firing as much as stylistic choices), and by extravagantly elaborated coiffures and ornaments that almost certainly encoded rank. Nok settlements also yield evidence of early iron smelting, placing these sculptures at a pivotal moment in West African technological history. Item # 73448

Lot: 583 - Nok Terracotta Seated Dignitary Figure with Beaded Collars

West Africa, Nigeria, Nok culture. A seated personage rises in a tall column of orange terracotta, one knee drawn up and the hands resting near the ankle, the body set atop a flaring cylindrical base. Heavy coiled collars ring the neck and a thick banded belt with dangling ties girds the waist, the strands rendered as crisp incised ridges. The head, disproportionately large in the Nok manner, carries a ridged coiffure, arched brows, and the culture's signature ovoid eyes pierced through the pupils, with flared nostrils and lips likewise drilled. The dense solid fabric is hand-modeled and reductively carved, its dry surface bearing traces of burnish. Figures of this scale and regalia likely represented persons of rank and probably served a commemorative or shrine function. The Nok culture of the Jos Plateau and Benue valley produced sub-Saharan Africa's earliest known large-scale sculpture, first recognized in 1928 when tin-mining operations near the village of Nok turned up terracotta heads in alluvial gravels. Its artists worked in a coarse, grog-tempered clay built up by hand and then pared back with tools, a subtractive approach closer to carving than to modeling, which accounts for the sharp facetted planes and the deeply undercut ornament seen here.\n\nThe perforated triangular or D-shaped eyes are the culture's most diagnostic convention; the openings at pupil, nostril, mouth, and ear also vented the thick walls during firing, a solution as practical as it is arresting. Elaborate beaded collars, waist strands, and pendant ties recur across the corpus and are generally read as insignia of status. Nok terracottas are conventionally dated from roughly the mid-first millennium BCE into the early centuries CE, and their relationship to later Nigerian sculptural traditions at Ife and Benin remains a live question in African art history. Item # 73449

Lot: 584 - Igbo Agbogho Mmwo Maiden Spirit Mask with Leopard Crest

West Africa, Nigeria, Igbo culture. A white-faced maiden spirit rises beneath a towering sagittal crest, carved in wood and finished with kaolin and pigment. The delicate visage carries high serrated brows, a narrow ridged nose, and parted lips revealing a row of teeth, with radiating star-shaped scarification rosettes at the temples and cheeks. Coiffure panels are incised with dense concentric spirals, and a pair of crouching leopards, oko-oko, flanks the blade-like crest, their hollowed eye sockets and bared teeth answering the serenity of the face below. Worn with a fitted costume by male dancers of the mmwo society, such helmet masks embody idealized feminine beauty and the returning spirits of young women, the predatory cats above marking the power that attends them. Agbogho mmwo, the "maiden spirit" masquerade of the northern Igbo, belongs to a performance tradition in which men dance the idealized dead. The chalk-white face is not portraiture but a statement of otherworldliness: nzu, white kaolin, is the color of the spirit realm and of moral purity, and the fine incised scarification quotes the uli body-painting and igbu ichi marks once used to signal beauty and social maturity. The masks appear in the dry season, at funerals and harvest festivals, moving with a light, mincing step deliberately opposed to the heavier, aggressive gait of the male maskers who share the arena. Leopards perched on a maiden crest introduce a counter-register. In Igbo thought the leopard is the paradigm of untamed authority and titled power, and its presence atop a beauty mask sets refinement against ferocity in a single sculptural argument. Elaborate crests of this kind, built up with spiral coiffure panels and openwork blades, are associated with the Nri-Awka and Onitsha carving workshops. Item # 73450

Lot: 585 - Igbo Okoroshi Agiriga Horned Water Spirit Mask, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Igbo culture. A carved wooden face mask crowned by a pair of long angular horns that bend forward above the brow. The ovoid face is framed by a scalloped relief edge and punctuated with inset teardrop concavities scattered across the rounded forehead and cheeks. High arched brows arc over open slit eyes, and the toothed mouth is ringed by protruding lips drawn out into a beaklike muzzle. Layers of encrusted deposit have built into a dark brown patina. The horns identify the wearer as Agiriga, the male spirit within the Okoroshi masquerade of southwestern Igboland, danced for the water spirits believed to descend from the clouds with the rains. Mounted on a custom base. Okoroshi masquerades run with the rainy season among the southwestern Igbo (Agwa Igbo), when spirits are said to leave their cloud dwellings and inhabit the human world for the duration of the wet months. The performances honor Owu, the water spirit, and divide sharply along an aesthetic axis: white or light-surfaced masks are conventionally female, refined and beautiful, while darker, aggressive forms are male. Agiriga is the notable exception to that scheme, a male character recognized above all by the pair of angular horns rising over the head rather than by its coloring. Compare Cole and Aniakor, "Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos" (UCLA, 1985), p. 196, fig. 310. Item # 73451

Lot: 586 - Igbo Agbogho Mmuo Maiden Spirit Mask with Five Horn Coiffure

West Africa, Nigeria, Igbo culture. A maiden spirit mask carved in light wood, its face washed in thick white kaolin against a blackened coiffure crowned by five cone-shaped horns. Concentric engraved rosettes ripple across the crest and repeat as raised medallions at the temples; ridged keloid scarification chevrons the forehead and flanks the mouth. The features are refined and deliberately idealized: narrow slit eyes, a long blade-thin nose, and a softly smiling mouth with finely notched teeth. Worn with a costume by male dancers of the mmuo society, such masks embody the beauty of departed young women, the white pigment marking the pale complexion attributed to the spirit world. Traces of red pigment tip the horns, and the reverse retains its attachment perforations. Agbogho mmuo, "maiden spirit," is among the best known Igbo masquerade genres of southeastern Nigeria, performed chiefly at dry-season festivals and second burials. The dancers are men, sheathed in tight appliqued body suits, who adopt a mincing, delicate step in deliberate contrast to the aggressive black masks of the male spirits that share the arena. Beauty here is a moral argument: the elaborate crested coiffure, modeled on the plaited and threaded hairstyles once worn by girls at the close of seclusion, the neat teeth, and the fine linear scarification together render an ideal of civilized human accomplishment, while the chalk-white surface signals that the wearer has crossed into the realm of the ancestral dead. Item # 73452

Lot: 587 - Ogoni Elu Mask with Articulated Jaw and Crested Headdress, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Niger Delta, Ogoni peoples. A small wooden face mask whose lower jaw swings free on cord hinges, carved with a thick crest surmounted by a projecting tab or bill. The delicate features are finely cut: narrow lentoid eye slits, arched brows, a slender nose, puckered lips, and raised scarification marks before the angular ear lobes. Kaolin whitening across the face plays against the deep black pigment of crest and coiffure, which retains a shiny resinous patina. Such elu masks were worn in dance performances by young men's societies, the jaw clacking in time with speech and song, and are said to embody refined, idealized human character. Among the Ogoni of Rivers State, elu masks historically appeared in ritual performances at funerals and at the planting and harvesting of yams, the crop that governed the agricultural year. In more recent practice they have moved into Christmas and New Year festivities and the welcoming of important visitors (National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.). The hinged jaw is the signature Ogoni device: pulled by a cord, it lets the masked dancer appear to speak, sing, or laugh, animating the small face far beyond its scale. A related mask with comparable crested headdress was offered by Sotheby's, "Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas", 21 May 2024, lot 74. Item # 73453

Lot: 588 - Bamun Buffalo Helmet Mask with Kaolin Eyes, Cameroon Grassfields

Central Africa, Cameroon, Grassfields, Bamun Kingdom. A buffalo bursts from the wood in bold planes: sweeping horns ridged with deeply cut bands, a swollen brow split by a raised central ridge, lentoid eyes ringed in thick white kaolin, flaring nostrils, and a gaping muzzle baring blocky teeth. Carved from a single hardwood block and hollowed to sit over the wearer's head, the mask carries traces of red pigment inside the ears and a variegated, darkened patina over horns and mouth. The buffalo signals strength, courage, and royal authority in the Bamun Kingdom, and such helmet masks were danced by regulatory society members at royal festivals and funerary commemorations, moving in procession with masks of the elephant and other emblems of the fon's power. The Bamun (Bamoun) Kingdom of the Cameroon Grassfields, centered on Foumban, developed one of the most codified sculptural vocabularies in Central Africa, its imagery governed by the palace and its regulatory associations. Within that vocabulary the buffalo occupies a rank just below the elephant and the leopard: an animal of unstoppable force, mustered as a metaphor for the fon and for the men authorized to act on his behalf. Zoomorphic helmet masks of this type appeared in masquerade ensembles at enthronements, annual festivals, and the funerals of titled men, danced with a costume of woven fiber and cloth that concealed the body entirely, the carved head riding above the crowd where its silhouette could be read at a distance. The chalky kaolin restricted to eyes and ear-rims is not merely decorative. Across the Grassfields, white earth marks contact with the ancestral world and is applied to objects and persons at moments of consecration, so its survival in the recesses of an old mask is a record of repeated ritual attention rather than of a single carving campaign. Item # 73454

Lot: 589 - Yoruba Ogboni Society Bracelet Pair with Figures and Bells, Ijebu

West Africa, Nigeria, Ijebu region, Yoruba. A matched pair of cylindrical openwork cuffs cast in a copper alloy, each built around four figures in high relief: a frontal standing male with arms bent at shoulder height, one hand steadying a kneeling attendant, all crowned with textured conical headdresses. Between them runs a dense lattice of interlaced strapwork, the openings left clear so the metal reads as woven rather than pierced. Braided borders finish both rims, and the flat outer flange carries suspension loops hung with small cast clapperless bells. Such cuffs served as regalia for senior members of the Ogboni society, worn on the forearm or set upon altars as emblems of authority and earth-bound spiritual power. Kneeling attendants are an unusual addition to the Ogboni bracelet repertoire. The Ogboni (Osugbo among the Ijebu) is the judicial and religious council of Yoruba towns, devoted to Onile, the earth deity whose sanction underwrites oath-taking, land tenure, and the mediation of capital cases. Its members are its emblems: paired edan staffs joined by a chain, brass gongs, and cast regalia of exactly this kind, all executed in copper alloy because brass is imperishable and thus a fitting metaphor for the eternal earth. The Ijebu casters were among the most inventive in Yorubaland, and their taste for interlace, an endless knot with no beginning and no end, is often read as a figure for continuity and for the binding secrecy of the society itself. Bells attached to regalia announce the presence of a senior member and mark the transition into ritual time. Matched pairs survive rarely: Ogboni objects are conventionally made and used in twos, male and female, but they are seldom kept together once removed from the lodge. Item # 73455

Lot: 590 - Bamun Beaded Trophy Head "Atwonzen", Cameroon Grassfields

Africa, Cameroon, Grassfields, Bamun peoples. A human head sheathed entirely in imported glass seed beads, each one stitched in tight rows over a cloth-covered carved wooden core. The face pushes forward: projecting cupped ears, bulging rimmed eyes, a ridged nose worked in rainbow beadwork, and an open mouth banded in cobalt and white. Yellow tubular beads pave the crown as a coiffure, while the reverse carries chevrons and dashes in chalk-white on dark cloth. Fields of white, lime, turquoise, red and cobalt build a dense polychrome mosaic across every plane. Such beaded heads, called atwonzen, served the Bamun court as prestige emblems of authority, likely displayed or carried in royal and society contexts. Custom base. Beadwork in the Cameroon Grassfields was a royal monopoly in all but name. Glass beads arrived through trans-Saharan and later Atlantic trade, and the right to be surrounded by them, on thrones, calabashes, elephant masks, stools, and figures, belonged to the fon and the titled societies orbiting him. The Bamun kingdom, centered at Foumban and famous under Sultan Njoya (reigned ca. 1887 to 1933), maintained specialist workshops whose artists sewed beads over carved wooden armatures wrapped in raffia cloth, a technique that let color, not carving, carry the composition. Beaded heads of this type are conventionally associated with commemoration of the vanquished: emblems of victory and of the ruler's power over life. The reading is traditional rather than firmly documented for every example, and some such heads functioned more broadly as regalia and society insignia. Either way, the concentration of expensive imported beads on a single small object is itself the statement of rank. Item # 73456

Lot: 591 - Yoruba Egungun Headdress with Four Figures, Drummer and Kneeling Women

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A padded disc crown of layered red, maroon, and indigo cloth, hand-stitched at the rim and studded with rows of sewn cowrie shells, carries four carved wooden figures facing the cardinal directions. One beats a drum slung on a blue strap, another grips a sheathed knife, and two kneeling women cup their breasts in the Yoruba gesture of devotion and supplication. Coiffures rise in crested and domed forms, blackened above faces with inset white eyes and incised brows. Pigments of yellow-brown, indigo, black, and white cover the carving. Such assemblages crowned Egungun masqueraders, whose whirling cloth ensembles made the ancestral dead momentarily visible among the living. Mounted on a custom base. Egungun (from the Yoruba for "bone" or "masquerade") is the collective apparition of the ancestors, summoned during annual festivals and funerary rites by initiated male performers of the Egungun society. Concealed head to foot in swirling panels of imported and locally woven cloth, the dancer ceases to be himself: the ancestors speak through him, offering blessings, arbitration, and reproof. The superstructure above the head declares the lineage or society the masquerade serves, and figural crowns like this one assemble a miniature social world, drummer, knife-bearer, and kneeling devotees, the same cast that surrounds the living masquerader in performance. Cowrie shells, long the currency of the Yoruba interior, signal both wealth and the favor of the orisa, while the accretion of costly cloth records generations of offerings and refurbishment by successive custodians of the ensemble. Item # 73457

Lot: 592 - Yoruba Beaded Orikogbofo Crown with Floral Rosettes and Bead Tassel

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A conical beaded cap crown of the type called orikogbofo, its cloth-over-basketry body sheathed entirely in glass seed beads worked in yellow, red, royal blue, white, and black. Six panels rise to a blue beaded finial; each carries a stylized rosette in red, black, and blue, while a broad register of interlaced black-and-white strapwork enclosing red lozenges encircles the lower band. A beaded tassel of long white strands falls from one side. Lighter and less formal than the veiled ade, such a crown was worn by an Oba for everyday duties, or possibly by a high-ranking chief, keeping the sacred head covered at all times. Yoruba kingship is embodied in beadwork. Only an Oba and a narrow circle of titled office-holders may wear beaded regalia, and the head, ori, is understood as the seat of destiny and spiritual power, never to be exposed in public. The great conical ade with its beaded veil, birds, and ancestral faces is reserved for state occasions; the orikogbofo, whose name is glossed roughly as "the head does not go bare," serves the ruler's ordinary round of audiences, greetings, and daily administration.\n\nThe imported Venetian and Bohemian glass seed beads that make this vocabulary possible arrived through Atlantic trade in quantity during the 19th century, transforming a formerly restricted craft into the dense polychrome embroidery seen here. Beadworkers, adugba, were themselves attached to royal courts, and the interlace band running below the rosettes belongs to a long-lived Yoruba design repertoire also found on carved doors and drums. Item # 73458

Lot: 593 - Igbo Afikpo Beaked Mask with Openwork Superstructure, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Igbo people, Afikpo. A carved wood face reduced to pure geometry: a conical beak thrusts forward from a concave oval visage, spearing an openwork rectangular panel cut with alternating triangles, while a long pierced plank rises overhead like a crest. Traces of striped pigment survive along the sides, and an old rattan tie remains threaded through the perforated rim, evidence of long wear. Dark red-brown patina pools in the recesses. Masks of this abstract, avian type were worn in Afikpo village masquerades, where performers embodied spirits in dances of satire, initiation, and social correction, the sculptural forms deliberately non-human so the wearer's identity dissolved into the character he carried. Afikpo, an Igbo community in southeastern Nigeria, sustained one of the most inventive masking traditions in the region, documented in detail by Simon Ottenberg. Its masquerades, staged by graded men's societies, ranged from the beautiful maiden-spirit types to the deliberately abstract and grotesque, the latter licensed to mock, judge, and shame. The elongated openwork plank and projecting beak belong to that abstract register, in which carved geometry rather than human likeness signals the presence of a spirit.\n\nFor a comparable example see M. Roberts and A. Roberts, "The Shape of Belief: African Art from the Dr. Michael R. Heide Collection", 1996, p. 88, no. 61. Item # 73459

Lot: 594 - Yoruba Olumeye Bowl Bearer Figure with Indigo Pigment

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A kneeling woman rises from an integral circular pedestal, both hands steadying a deep hemispherical bowl incised with radiating hatch panels. Carved in wood with a burnished warm brown surface, she wears a tall crested sagittal coiffure, projecting breasts, a relief-carved chin, and dense keloid scarification across the whole of her back, all quickened with indigo-blue pigment that also picks out her bracelets and the bowl's incising. Inset metal forms the pupils, lending the gaze its alertness. Figures of this type, known as olumeye, served in shrines as offering bearers to deities and ancestors, and in palace contexts where the bowl held kola nuts presented to honored guests. Indigo held exceptional value in Yoruba aesthetics. Locally cultivated and later supplemented by imported dyes, the color carried connotations of prestige, coolness, and spiritual potency, and its application to coiffure, ornament, and incised pattern marks the figure as a person of consequence rather than a generic attendant. The olumeye ("one who knows honor") embodies the Yoruba conception of ideal womanhood: composed, kneeling in the posture of respect and prayer, generous with what she carries. Elaborate coiffure and body markings are not decoration alone but statements of lineage, initiation, and social standing, the outward signs of iwa, or good character, which Yoruba thought holds inseparable from beauty. Item # 73460

Lot: 595 - Yoruba Olumeye Kneeling Female Bowl Bearer with Turned Head

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba culture. A kneeling woman turns her head sharply aside while cradling a deep ovoid offering bowl against her thighs, both hands splayed across its wall. Carved in wood with a red-brown patina and camwood powder deposits, the figure wears stacked bracelets, an incised waist belt, lentoid scarification cartouches on the upper arms, keloid marks across cheeks and back, and a tall multi-lobed coiffure of finely combed ridges. The bowl's lower body is covered in dense triangular chip-carved texture. Known as an olumeye, "one who knows honor," such figures held kola nuts offered to guests and to the orisa, most often set before shrines of Sango or Esu. The turned head is an uncommon and animated variation on the standard frontal pose. The olumeye belongs to Yoruba shrine furniture, where the kneeling posture (ikunle) is the attitude of prayer, deference, and petition, and above all the pose of a woman before an orisa. Kola nuts drawn from such a bowl carry both hospitality and divination: split into lobes, they answer questions put to the gods. The elaborate coiffure and body markings identify the bearer as a devotee at the peak of her beauty, an offering in her own right.\n\nComparable seated olumeye with the head turned to one side are rare. See the female shrine figure in the de Young Museum, inventory no. 1996.12.61, which shares the arm scarification and carved belt, and a further example from the William Brill collection sold by Arte Primitivo, auction 94, September 2019, lot 671. Item # 73461

Lot: 596 - Yoruba Egungun Janus Helmet Mask with Sagittal Crest

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A hemispherical helmet carved from a single block of hardwood, presenting two opposing faces divided by a tall sagittal crest. Each visage is composed with heavy-lidded eyes set in notched rims, a broad flattened nose, full parted lips, and fanned cheek scarification. Adze facets remain legible across the dome, and the flaring lower rim is pierced with a row of small holes that once secured the voluminous textile costume worn with it. The surface carries a dry brown patina from long ceremonial use. Danced in Egungun masquerades honoring the returning ancestral dead, the Janus form projects vigilance in both directions, the ancestors seeing what the living cannot. Egungun (from "egun", bone) is the Yoruba institution of ancestral return: masked societies whose members, wholly concealed beneath layered panels of imported and locally woven cloth, embody the collective dead during annual festivals and funerary rites. No flesh may show, since contact with the masquerader's body is understood as contact with the spirit world, and the pierced rim of a helmet like this one is the practical evidence of that requirement, the anchor points for a costume that swallowed the wearer entirely. Janus and multi-faced heads recur in Yoruba carving as statements about perception rather than portraiture. Two faces watch the visible and the invisible, the compound and the bush, the present community and the ancestral realm behind it. The idealized calm of the features, the smooth brow, the lowered gaze, follows the aesthetic of "ifarabale", composure, which Yoruba critics prize in sculpture as in human conduct. Item # 73462

Lot: 597 - Yoruba Kneeling Female Shrine Figure with Indigo Crested Coiffure

West Africa, Nigeria, Yoruba. A kneeling female devotee carved from a single block of wood, poised on an integral circular base with the tall flat soles of her feet tucked beneath her. Bent arms lift long triangular pendant breasts, a gesture of offering and nurture, above a columnar neck. The head carries a tall ridged crest coiffure washed in indigo pigment, the face set with bulging coffee-bean eyes and inlaid pupils. Surface worked to a rich red-brown burnish. Kneeling women of this type stand on Yoruba shrines as embodiments of devotion, presented to an orisha as supplicant and intermediary, and were likely made for such a shrine context. The kneeling posture (ikunle) is the Yoruba attitude of prayer and submission before an orisha, and it doubles as the position of childbirth: ikunle abiyamo, the kneeling of the mother in labor, is invoked as the most binding of oaths. Sculptors returned to the motif constantly, for Sango and Osun shrines, for Ifa divination furniture, and for bowl-bearing olumeye figures, because it condenses piety, fertility, and the moral authority of women into one form. The elaborated crest coiffure signals status and cult affiliation rather than everyday dress; the blue wash derives from laundry blue or indigo, widely adopted by carvers in the early twentieth century for exactly this purpose. Item # 73463

Lot: 598 - Idoma Ceremonial Altar Bowl with Ancestor Head, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Idoma peoples. A hand-adzed hardwood platter of rounded rectangular form, its deeply recessed basin retaining the rhythmic tool marks of the carver and centered by a raised circular boss. Rising from one end on a slender neck is an ancestral head with a ridged hair crest, closed lentoid eyes, a prominent triangular nose, pursed lips, and lozenge scarification marks at the temples. The surface carries a dark brown weathered matte patina. Such platters served altar and hospitality functions: meat was portioned on the recessed field during certain rites, and kola nuts, the essential offering of welcome and covenant, were presented from them. Mounted on a custom base. The Idoma of Nigeria's Benue valley share a carving vocabulary with their Igbo, Igala, and Tiv neighbors, and their figural sculpture is marked by the same alert, sharply planed faces and incised temple cicatrices seen here. The head is not a portrait but an ancestral presence, placed so that the lineage dead attend whatever is set out on the tray. Kola nut ritual binds much of southeastern Nigeria. Among the Igbo the vessel used for its presentation is the okwa oji, the kola bowl, brought out for guests, elders, and the opening of any consequential gathering; the nut is broken, prayed over, and shared, and the man who presents it speaks for the household. A tray of this scale, with an ancestor watching from its rim, belongs to that world of formal hospitality and lineage obligation rather than to ordinary domestic use. Item # 73464

Lot: 599 - Owo Yoruba Carved Wood Ancestral Ram Head (Osamasinmi), Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Owo Yoruba. A ram's head hewn from a single block of dense hardwood, its wide triangular muzzle tapering below heavy lidded eyes set under a furrowed brow. Grooved whiskers ripple above the mouth, pendant ears flare to either side, and thick horns coil back in tightly ridged registers. The angular neck rises from an integral circular base incised with foliate fronds, while a hollow shaft channels the length of the back, likely a socket for a carved tusk. Dark brown patina throughout. Heads of this type stood on ancestral altars, the ram's aggressive vigilance serving as an emblem of the strength and watchfulness expected of rulers, and commemorating a high ranking forebear of the lineage. Owo, a Yoruba kingdom on the frontier between Ife and Benin, absorbed courtly conventions from both and produced an ivory and wood carving tradition of unusual refinement. Ram heads (osamasinmi) belong to the ako or ancestral altar complex, where they were set with carved tusks, staffs, and offering bowls in shrines dedicated to lineage founders and titled chiefs. The ram carries a dense symbolic charge across West Africa: its unhesitating charge and lowered horns figure the resolve a ruler must show, and its habit of butting head-first supplies a Yoruba proverb on facing adversity directly. The hollow dorsal channel here is diagnostic of the type, cut to seat a projecting element now absent. Item # 73465

Lot: 600 - Luba Janus Power Figure with Medicine Headdress

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Luba. A double-bodied guardian carved from a single block, two female figures joined back to back so that opposing heads share one crested coiffure with sweeping lateral extensions. Both bodies stand with flexed knees on a footed platform, hands drawn to swelling abdomens incised with fine scarification. Above the shared coiffure sits a compacted earthen cap, the bilongo or medicinal charge that activates the object and marks it as a power figure rather than a commemorative portrait. The wood carries a deep brown burnished patina across the arms and shoulders, dulling to matte on the lower body where handling gave way to burial and weathering. Janiform figures of this type were entrusted to diviners and ritual specialists, their twinned gaze understood to watch both the visible world and the unseen one. Among the Luba and their neighbors in the Congo basin, the sculptural body is a container before it is an image. Efficacy resides not in the carving but in the charge, the packed accretion of earth, resin, seeds, and organic matter applied by a ritual specialist and periodically renewed. A figure stripped of its charge is inert; one bearing it, as here, was a working instrument of divination, protection, or oath-taking.\n\nThe Janus format compounds that logic. Two faces looking in opposite directions signal comprehensive vision, the capacity to see the living and the dead, the past and the coming, the approach of an enemy from any quarter. That both bodies are female accords with Luba thought, in which women are the vessels of spirit and the keepers of royal secrets, a conviction that runs through the caryatid stools and bowl-bearing figures of the same tradition. Item # 73466

Lot: 601 - Ibibio Wooden Dance Crest with Seven Heads, Nigeria

West Africa, Nigeria, Ibibio people, ca. 20th century CE. A wooden dance crest comprised of a helmet-shaped calotte with a central projecting head, surrounded by six additional heads with long necks reminiscent of octopus tentacles. All seven heads present stylized visages with bulging eyes, incised nostrils, open mouths, and striations of ceremonial scarification. The largest head, at the center, has metal teeth and a horizontally ribbed neck. The Ibibio live in southeastern Nigeria in the Niger River Delta region. Wealth in this society came largely from the sale of palm oil, and the social dominance of certain individuals was reinforced through ritual dances incorporating masks like this one. Some examples of this mask type also carried spiritual significance. Item # 180826

Lot: 602 - Bangwa Carved Wood Face Mask with Horns, Cameroon Grasslands

Cameroon, Grasslands, Bangwa. A confrontational visage carved from a single block of hardwood, hollowed behind to sit over the dancer's face. Relief horns curve back across the crown, flanked by projecting ears and rounded bosses at the temples and cheeks. Heavy lids frame bulging eyes; a ridged nose descends to an open mouth baring a row of cut teeth. Layered black surface, dry and thickly encrusted, reveals earlier red pigment where it has flaked, evidence of repainting between performance cycles. Masks of this aggressive type belonged to the regulatory and warrior societies of the Cameroon Grasslands, danced at funerals of titled men and at public displays of chiefly authority. Mounted on a custom base. The Bangwa of the western Cameroon Grasslands, a cluster of small chiefdoms in the Lebialem highlands, produced masking traditions tied to closed regulatory associations that policed the fon's authority. Horned and fanged faces of this kind belong to the fierce end of that repertoire, appearing among troupes of ranked masks whose order of entry mirrored the hierarchy of the society itself. Repeated resurfacing, black over red, is characteristic of masks kept in active service rather than retired: a mask was renewed as an office is renewed, and the stratified crust is a record of that maintenance rather than mere accretion. Item # 73467

Lot: 603 - Mambila Tawon Side-Blown Trumpet with Female Figural Finial

Africa, Cameroon, Mambila. A long side-blown trumpet, or tawon, carved from a single length of wood, its slender neck swelling gradually to a flared bell. The mouthpiece opens through the back just below the crown, where a female figure surmounts the instrument: tapered conical head, sloping facial plane, incised brows above lidded eyes, an open oval mouth, and a small torso with pointed breasts and angular shoulders. The surface carries a dark burnished brown patina with warm russet highlights across the head. Instruments of this type sounded during Suaga masquerades, the male association performances in which knitted body suits and carved headpieces appeared, and were played in pairs. Among the Mambila of the Nigeria-Cameroon grassfields, the suaga association governed one of the principal male masquerade cycles. Performers wore knitted fiber suits, sometimes crowned with a carved wooden headpiece, and their emergence was announced by an ensemble of instruments in which the tawon trumpet held a distinctive place. The trumpets were sounded in pairs, the two players circling one another as they walked, so that the paired voices of the instruments mirrored the choreography of the men who carried them.\n\nA comparable tawon with a figural finial is published in "The Shape of Belief: African Art from the Dr. Michael R. Heide Collection," p. 65. Item # 73468

Lot: 604 - Ngbaka Fly Whisk with Carved Janus-Style Head, DR Congo

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ngbaka peoples. A carved wooden fly whisk crowned by a human head in characteristic Ngbaka idiom: an ovoid face with raised scarification running down the nasal ridge, across the brow and over the cheeks, pierced eyes and a small projecting mouth, all reduced to essentials with no reach toward naturalism. Animal hide is stretched tight over the cranium and stitched along the back, while braided fiber and leather bind the neck above a full switch of dark animal hair. The hollow shaft may once have held charged material. Whisks of this kind served as insignia of standing across much of Africa, carried by an elder, a chief or a nobleman, and the deep glossy patina and softened carving record long handling. The Ngbaka of the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo are best known for figures and masks with the same shorthand facial vocabulary seen here: a flattened ovoid face, a vertical ridge of raised keloids down the nose, and lateral scars fanning across the temples. Those marks are not ornament but identity, applied at initiation and legible at a glance as tribal and generational affiliation. Bourgeois and Rodolitz observe that decorated flywhisks across Africa function as emblems of prestige, signalling rank to onlookers before a word is spoken. In practice the whisk is both a tool against insects and a rhetorical instrument, swept for emphasis in oratory and displayed at gatherings where precedence must be visible. Item # 73469

Lot: 605 - Punu Lumbo Male Reliquary Figure with Dorsal Cavity, Gabon

Central Africa, Gabon, Punu Lumbo peoples. A carved wood male figure in flexed crouch, the thick cylindrical torso opened at the back by a rectangular compartment sheltering a diminutive figure in relief. The head carries a multi-lobed coiffure above a heart-shaped face washed in white pigment, a lozenge scarification medallion set on the forehead. Fiber cord threaded through lateral perforations encircles the waist and binds the dorsal cavity shut. A hollowed cavity pierces the throat. Such compartments held consecrated substances, and the figure likely served as a guardian or power object rather than as an ancestor portrait alone. The whitened face aligns with Punu Lumbo aesthetics of the spirit world, where kaolin marks the dead and the beautiful in equal measure. A rare form. The Punu and their Lumbo neighbors of southern Gabon and the Ngounie River basin are best known internationally for okuyi white-faced masks, whose kaolin surfaces represent idealized female ancestors returning from the land of the dead. Full-figure carvings from these workshops are far scarcer, and examples with a dorsal reliquary compartment scarcer still: the cavity, and the throat aperture, would have been charged with bilongo, medicines and relics activating the sculpture on behalf of a lineage or an individual practitioner. The lozenge scarification on the brow, the mabinda pattern, is a diagnostic regional mark shared with the mask corpus and served as a badge of beauty and social identity. Item # 73470

Lot: 606 - Zulu Ukhamba Beer Vessel with Amasumpa Zigzag Motifs

Southern Africa, South Africa, Zulu. A generously swelling globular pot, hand-built and burnished to a deep mirror-dark sheen that shifts from graphite black to warm oxblood as light crosses it. The shoulder tapers to a short everted rim above an unbroken belly. Encircling the widest curve are opposing zigzag registers built from raised nodes (amasumpa), rows of small applied pellets whose texture recalls scarified skin against the polished ground. Such vessels, called ukhamba, hold utshwala, the sorghum beer brewed for household hospitality and for occasions honoring the ancestors, and are passed from hand to hand among seated drinkers. Blackening comes from a smothered, smoke-reduced firing followed by patient stone burnishing, a finish achieved without glaze. Among the Zulu, pottery is a woman's art, the knowledge of clay sources, coiling, burnishing stones, and smoke firing transmitted from mother to daughter. Archaeological evidence places ceramic production by ancestral Nguni-speaking communities in the region roughly a thousand years ago, and the ukhamba form has proved remarkably conservative across that span. The raised-node decoration seen here, amasumpa ("warts"), carries associations with cattle, wealth, and lineage, and was historically linked with the Zulu royal house; the motif also echoes the raised scarification once worn on the body. A comparable vessel is held by the Yale University Art Gallery, accession 2016.48.1. Item # 73471

Lot: 607 - Pende Mbuya Forehead Mask with Bearded Plank and Raffia Coiffure

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pende peoples. A carved wood forehead mask worn tilted above the face, presenting one of the character types performed in mbuya masquerades. Three mishita scarification bars incise the domed brow above heavy-lidded, nearly closed eyes, small projecting ears, and a downturned mouth. Below, a long plank-like beard is engraved with rhythmic rows of triangles, pierced along its margins, and washed in alternating dark and pale pigment for a taut geometric cadence. Red, black, and white pigments cover the face, and the mask retains its bundled bark-cloth headdress with traces of embroidered raffia coiffure. Such masks were danced by initiated male performers in village entertainments and initiation-linked festivals, each personifying a recognized social type. Mbuya masking among the Pende of the Kwilu region belongs to a repertoire of named characters, from the chief (fumu) and the diviner to the flirt, the epileptic, and the lovesick youth, each identifiable by a fixed vocabulary of facial expression, coiffure, and beard. The downcast, heavy-lidded eyes and pointed beard plank recur in the more dignified male types, whose restrained gaze reads as composure rather than sleep. Masks of this kind were danced at initiation closings and village festivals, where the audience judged the performer against the character everyone already knew.\n\nThe mishita, the short parallel bars set on the brow, are the sculptural memory of scarification once cut on the living face; on masks they persist as a marker of Pende identity long after the practice itself lapsed. Item # 73472

Lot: 608 - Yaka Initiation Mask with Seated Figure Superstructure and Raffia Mane

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yaka. “Kholuka” helmet mask, a striking ceremonial mask worn during initiation rites. The large wooden mask is surmounted by a seated male figure positioned atop a conical cloth headdress coated with resin. Concavities in the figure's hands indicate that it originally held ceremonial implements, now absent. Below, the expressive face is dominated by a boldly projecting nose and retains areas of white and indigo-blue pigment, together with faded traces of red. A dense collar of raffia surrounds the base, concealing the performer, while a cylindrical wooden handle extending beneath the chin allowed the dancer to support and manipulate the mask during performance. Surface wear. Matte patina with deposits. Masks of this type belong to the n’khanda circumcision cycle, worn by young men emerging from seclusion as sthey danced through neighboring villages. The figural superstructure, marks the mask as one of the more elaborate ranks within that masquerade. cf Bourgeois, A., “Yaka”, 2014. The Yaka and their Suku neighbors occupy the Kwango River region of southwestern Congo, where the n-khanda initiation governed the passage of boys into adulthood. After months of seclusion, instruction, and circumcision, initiates returned to the village in masquerade, performing dances that were at once a public accounting of what they had learned and a licensed provocation aimed at the uninitiated. Each grade of mask carried its own name and privileges, from the modest kholuka worn by the ordinary graduate to the elaborate crested types reserved for the leaders of the cohort. Construction is as distinctive as the iconography: a carved wooden face is built up with a raffia-cloth armature stiffened with resin, then modeled and painted, which allowed the sculptor to extend the mask upward into architectural discs and freestanding figures impossible to achieve in wood alone. The saturated blue seen here derives from imported laundry bluing, adopted enthusiastically across the region in the 20th century and now a useful chronological marker. Item # 73473

Lot: 609 - Lega Bwami Society Cowrie Shell Prestige Headdress with Boar Tusks

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lega people. A domed cap of tightly coiled vegetable fiber sheathed in overlapping rows of cowrie shells, rising to a fan-shaped woven crest studded with further cowries. Curved boar tusks project from the front, flanked by a large scallop shell and lustrous nacreous valves, while a braided raffia chin strap is embroidered with a continuous line of cowries. Such headdresses were prestige regalia of the Bwami association, the graded initiatory society that ordered Lega moral and social life, worn by senior members as visible marks of rank earned through wisdom and conduct. The cowries and marine shells, materials carried inland from distant coasts, encoded wealth, exchange, and the reach of the wearer's standing. Presented on a custom display base. The Lega inhabit the rainforests east of the Lualaba River, and their social order was long governed less by chiefship than by Bwami, a voluntary association of ascending grades through which men and women advanced by demonstrated character, generosity, and mastery of an immense body of proverbs. Objects were not decoration within this system but instruments of instruction: at each initiation, regalia were displayed, handled, and paired with aphorisms whose meanings deepened as a member rose.\n\nHats of this class functioned as honors or diplomas, conferred at the higher levels and inseparable from the proverbs that explained them. They were retained as heirlooms, transmitted to a designated successor rather than buried with the owner, so that a family's accumulated regalia recorded generations of achievement. The imported cowrie, a currency across much of Central Africa, made that record legible in the language of value itself. Item # 73474

Lot: 610 - Lozi Lidded Wood Bowl with Water Birds, Zambia, Early 20th C.

Africa, Zambia, Lozi (Barotse) peoples. A carved hardwood bowl of shallow ovoid form with rounded base, closed by a fitted lid whose crest carries three water birds filing downward as if settling onto a river. The shoulder is ringed by a band of raised pyramidal nodes, a beaded register recalling scarification patterning, and the burnished surfaces alternate deep brown with a warm honey sheen across the birds' backs. Bowls of this type held and presented food, and the finer examples functioned as prestige containers, marking the rank of their owners within the Lozi court. Interior hollowing is smooth and even, the work of a practiced turner-carver rather than a village hand. Lozi (Barotse) court art of the upper Zambezi floodplain is inseparable from water. The kingdom's annual Kuomboka ceremony moves the litunga and his household by barge from the flooding plain to higher ground, and the imagery of birds, fish, hippopotamus, and canoe recurs across royal woodwork. Descending waterfowl on a lid finial belong to that visual vocabulary, and the same repertoire appears on the great royal drums and on the paddles of the Nalikwanda barge. Carving for the court was largely the work of specialist artisans drawn from subject communities absorbed into the Lozi state, notably the Mbunda and Subiya, whose technical repertoire the Lozi elite commissioned and controlled. The result is a body of woodwork in which quality of execution was itself an index of rank: the finer the bowl, the higher the household it served. Item # 73475

Lot: 611 - Makonde Njorowe Female Body Mask, Pregnant Torso, Wood, Mozambique

Africa, Mozambique, Makonde peoples. A lifesize female torso hollowed from dense wood, carved with pendulous breasts, a swollen abdomen and a sharply projecting navel. The convex outer surface is stained a warm red-brown and covered overall with fine cross-hatched tool marks, while the interior is scooped smooth to sit against the wearer's chest. Such body masks were worn by a male dancer who also carried a matching female face mask with a lip plug, the pair combining into a single figure. His slow, measured performance enacted the labor of childbirth and the weight of pregnancy, a subject the Makonde treat with gravity rather than caricature. Body masks of this type (njorowe or ndimu) belong to the masquerade complex of the Makonde of the Mozambique/Tanzania borderlands, performed at the conclusion of initiation rites. The dancer bound the hollowed torso to his chest with cord passed through the lateral perforations, added a wrapped cloth and a helmet or face mask, and became a pregnant woman for the length of the dance. Female initiates watching the performance were being instructed as much as entertained. The lip plug worn by the accompanying face mask reproduces the ndonya, the upper-lip disc formerly worn by Makonde women and one of the group's defining marks of beauty and adult status. Item # 73476

Lot: 612 - Sapi Mahen Yafe Stone Head, Sierra Leone, 15th-19th C.

West Africa, Sierra Leone, Sapi culture. A heavy ovoid head carved from tan stone, probably soapstone, its features held in a broad, inward calm. The lids are lowered over swelling eyes, the nose short and flaring, and the open rectangular mouth bares a row of filed teeth. Crosshatched hatching describes a low coiffure gathered into two raised discs at the crown, echoed in the dense cross-hatched beard and mustache that frame the jaw, with small projecting ears at either side. Heads of this type, known to later Mende finders as mahen yafe, "chief's spirit," were understood as manifestations of ancestral or chiefly power and were kept, fed, and consulted rather than merely displayed. Presented on a custom mount. The Sapi were the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast encountered by Portuguese mariners in the late fifteenth century, celebrated for the ivory saltcellars and hunting horns they carved on commission for European patrons before their polities were dispersed in the sixteenth-century Mane invasions. Their stone sculpture, worked in soapstone and related soft stones, survived them underground. Generations later, Mende and Kissi farmers turned these figures up while clearing and cultivating fields and absorbed them into their own religious life: the Mende called the heads mahen yafe and the full figures nomoli, setting them in rice shrines to secure a good harvest, and, tradition holds, chastising them when the yield disappointed. Filed teeth, elaborate coiffures, and scarification patterns of the kind seen here also appear on Sapi ivories, which is the principal evidence linking the stone corpus to that vanished culture. Item # 73477

Lot: 613 - Zulu Prestige Staff with Serpent, 19th to Early 20th C.

Southern Africa, South Africa, Zulu. A slender staff carved from a single length of dense, two-toned hardwood, crowned by an openwork quatrefoil loop above a knopped collar with lateral studs. Below, a series of stacked lobes and turned baluster swellings articulate the shaft, which narrows to a plain midsection wrapped by a serpent rendered in low relief, its coiled body spiraling upward toward the head. The lower shaft resumes the rhythm of bulbs and rings before terminating in a rounded ferrule-like foot. Wood surfaces carry a deep, hand-rubbed polish. Staffs of this type functioned as emblems of rank and authority, carried by men of standing; the serpent likely alludes to ancestral presence, a common register in Zulu carving. Among the Zulu and neighboring Nguni-speaking peoples of southeastern Africa, the carved staff (iwisa or induku in its various forms) was less a walking aid than a portable statement of standing. Carried in public assembly, at courts, and at ceremonial gatherings, such staffs announced seniority, lineage, and the right to speak. Virtuoso carvers worked hard indigenous woods to a lustrous polish, and the finest examples show exactly the vocabulary seen here: turned bulbs and rings that recall both gourd forms and imported lathe-turned furniture, together with animal imagery worked in relief from the same block. The snake is the most charged of these motifs. In Zulu belief certain snakes, notably the harmless house snake, are understood as vehicles of the amadlozi, the ancestral shades, and a serpent ascending a staff carries that association of protection, continuity, and ancestral sanction into the hand of the bearer. Whether the carving marks its owner as a diviner, a headman, or simply a man of consequence cannot be recovered from the object alone, but the care lavished on the openwork finial argues for a commission of some importance. Item # 73478

Lot: 614 - Kissi Steatite Pomdo Warrior Figure with Shield and Staff

West Africa, Sierra Leone, Kissi or earlier Sapi culture. A compact steatite warrior stands with a staff or short sword raised in one hand and a domed shield gripped in the other, ringed by diminutive figures read as vanquished foes. The head dominates, hooded eyes and jutting jaw beneath a coiled coiffure, and a twisted band circles the neck, a regalia form still worn by Temne chiefs at ceremonies. Carved in the round on a low circular base, the soft stone retains crisp facet work across the shoulders and the ribbed weapon haft, its surface a dark gray patina with red-brown earth deposits. Such figures, known as pomdo, were unearthed from riverbeds and fields by farmers and taken as ancestral presences, becoming protective guardians of the harvest. Steatite figures of this class are generally attributed to the ancestors of the present-day Kissi peoples or to the earlier Sapi culture of the Sierra Leone / Guinea littoral, though their precise origins, makers, and original function remain matters of scholarly debate. Kissi tradition holds that the stones were placed in the ground by the ancestors, so a pomdo recovered from a field belonged to the household that found it, was consulted through a diviner, fed, and rewarded or chastised according to the fortunes of the crop. They are among the clearest instances of ritual reuse in African art: objects made by one community and reinterpreted centuries later by another, acquiring new religious and ceremonial functions without losing their standing as physical links to the dead. Warrior figures armed with shield and blade are the rarer end of the corpus, and are often connected to the martial regalia recorded among the coastal chiefdoms encountered by Portuguese traders from the late 15th C. Item # 73479

Lot: 615 - Turkana Headrest with Metal Stud Inlay and Leather Carrying Strap, Kenya

East Africa, Kenya, Turkana peoples. A carved hardwood headrest whose gently dished rectangular platform rides on a waisted pillar and domed foot. Rows of white metal studs punctuate the rim, shaft, and base in dotted geometric bands, catching light against wood polished to a warm medium brown by handling. A plaited leather carrying strap, bound with coiled copper-colored wire, loops from platform to base so the piece could travel with its owner. Among the pastoral Turkana, such rests keep elaborate ochered coiffures intact during sleep and double as a stool and a portable emblem of male status, carried on the daily round with the herds. Turkana headrests (ekicholong) belong to the small personal kit a herder carries across the arid lands west of Lake Turkana: rest, seat, and, when the occasion demands, a weight to steady a hand during a moment of prayer. Their principal function is protective, holding the head clear of the ground so that the packed, ochre-and-fat coiffure signalling age-grade and marital standing survives the night. Studded metal inlay of this density marks a prestige commission rather than a hastily adzed traveling piece, and the metal strapping applied to the base is an old field repair, the kind of intervention that records a long working life rather than a workshop finish. Item # 73480

Lot: 616 - Toma Miniature Passport Maskette with Cowrie Fetish Bundle, Liberia

West Africa, Liberia, Toma (Loma). A miniature carved wood maskette of the personal, small-scale type associated with Poro society usage. The elongated face is reduced to essentials: a heavy overhanging brow, a squared projecting nose, and circular glass beads set as eyes. Above the brow sits a compact fetish bundle thick with earthen accretions, capped by three cowrie shells, from which two pairs of horn-like projections rise in a jagged crest. The whole is sheathed in a dense black encrusted patina with extensive sacrificial deposits, the residue of prolonged ritual handling and libation. Such maskettes served their owners as private guardians and proofs of initiated standing rather than as public dance masks. The Toma (called Loma in Guinea) of the Liberian forest belt organize male initiation through the Poro society, whose graded knowledge is embodied in masks kept away from uninitiated eyes. Alongside the great horizontal landai masks, carvers produced these diminutive faces, often called "passport" or "ma go" masks, which an initiate carried, kept in a personal shrine, or wrapped in cloth for travel. They authenticated the owner's status among strangers, received offerings of palm oil, kola, and sacrificial matter, and accumulated the crusted surface that collectors read as evidence of use. The additions matter as much as the carving. Cowrie shells, long a currency of the Atlantic and Saharan trades, signal wealth and fertility, while the bundle beneath them belongs to the widespread West African practice of binding potent substances into a medicine packet fixed to the object it empowers. The horned crest recalls the ram and bush-cow imagery that Poro associates with masculine force. Item # 73481

Lot: 617 - Lobi Figural Staff Finials, Pair, Burkina Faso, Early to Mid 20th C.

West Africa, Burkina Faso, Lobi peoples. A pair of slender angular hardwood staffs, each carved from a single branch and surmounted by an abstract anthropomorphic figure rising above a stylized zoomorphic head terminating in an avian-like beak. The interplay of human and animal forms gives each staff a strikingly sculptural silhouette. The figure on the smaller staff is distinguished by a sharply tapered face, subtly defined linear nose, and domed head. The taller example has developed a rich, burnished honey-brown patina, and the shorter staff displays a warm red-brown burnished surface. Both figures have layered deposits and surface wear along the handle consistent with age and handling. Both have age cracks and cut down at base. Each on custom base. The Lobi of southwestern Burkina Faso, northern Ghana, and Cote d'Ivoire carve without a centralized court or chiefly patronage; sculpture is commissioned by individual households at the instruction of a thil, a tutelary spirit, whose demands are relayed through a diviner. The resulting figures, most familiarly the bateba, are installed on domestic shrines and fed with libations, oils, and millet beer, which is precisely the treatment that produces the layered red-brown crust seen on the lower shafts here. Staffs of this form occupy the boundary between shrine furniture and personal regalia. Carried in dance and displayed as marks of standing, they invert the usual figural proportions: the human body becomes the finial and the legs become the handle, so that the sculpture is gripped by its own elongated limbs. The kaolin brightening of the upper body follows a widespread West African convention linking white pigment with the ancestral and spirit worlds, setting the pale torso against the darkened, hand-worn wood beneath. Item # 73482

Lot: 618 - Huge Chinese Xindian Culture Painted Jar, Gansu

China, Gansu region, Xindian culture, Late Neolithic to Bronze Age, ca. 2000–1000 BCE. Large hand-built pottery storage jar, the broad ovoid body rising to a flared rim, with a pair of lug handles at the shoulder. The vessel is painted in black over a reddish-buff slip with bold spirals, zigzags, and linear motifs characteristic of Xindian culture. Vessels of this type originate from the Gansu corridor and Tao River Valley of northwestern China, a region where, unlike contemporary central Chinese cultures, the potter's wheel was not adopted; pottery was instead hand-built by coil construction, often giving vessels a slightly asymmetrical form. This jar is notably large for the type. Size: 25" Diameter x 26" H (63.5 cm x 66 cm). Item # 196941

Lot: 619 - Han Dynasty Pottery Tomb Figure of a Laborer (TL'd)

East Asia, China, Wu region, late Han Dynasty to early Southern and Northern Dynasties, ca. 2nd to 5th century CE. A tall mold-made pottery figure depicting a laborer or farmer, one of the largest funerary attendant figures of this type recorded in the collection. One hand holds a slender tool resembling a Chinese bronze dagger-sword with a ringed pommel, with a second example suspended from his belt; the other hand is outstretched and may originally have held a spade or shovel, based on comparable examples in museum collections. TL tested, confirming a firing date consistent with the period. The Han Dynasty was a period of wealth and political stability in China, and imperial burial sites reflected this prosperity, containing hundreds to thousands of miniature terracotta figures depicting daily life at the emperor's court, including armored warriors, servants, eunuchs, animals, and architectural models such as granaries. Production of these pottery figures supported a substantial industry, and the remains of associated workshops have been identified near several burial mounds. This piece has been tested using thermoluminescence (TL) analysis and has been found to be ancient and of the period stated by Daybreak Archaeometric Laboratory Service. A full report will accompany the item upon purchase. Item # 177328

Lot: 620 - Tang Dynasty Sancai Glazed Horse, TL Tested

East Asia, China, Tang Dynasty. Standing horse modeled in earthenware with sancai glaze, in cream with amber-brown runs down the mane, muzzle, and tail, the body retaining traces of red pigment over a molded saddle and saddlecloth. The figure stands foursquare on a rectangular slab base. Horses of this type were made as mingqi, ceramic tomb furnishings buried to serve the deceased in the afterlife, reflecting the high status of the horse in Tang society; the detailed saddle and bridle mark this as an elite mount rather than a working animal. This piece has been tested using thermoluminescence (TL) analysis and has been found to be ancient and of the period stated. A full printed and bound report will accompany the item upon purchase. Item # 192277

Lot: 621 - Warring States Grayware Storage Vessel with Impressed Diamond Net Bands

East Asia, China, Warring States period. A generously swollen grayware jar of imposing scale, its tapered bulbous body rising to a sloping shoulder and a thickened, rounded rim. The lower two thirds carry four broad registers of impressed relief ornament, a dense diamond net worked in chevron and lozenge courses, the crisp paddle stamping still catching light across every facet. Faint pink pigment lingers in the recesses, while the burnished upper zone remains plain, an intentional contrast between smooth shoulder and textured belly. Such stamped earthenware jars served domestic and mortuary storage alike, holding grain, wine, or provisions, and their geometric skins descend from the paddle-and-anvil traditions of southeastern China. Mineral deposits and earthen encrustation attest to long burial. Impressed geometric stampwork of this kind is the signature of the "geometric ware" horizon that flourished in the Yangzi valley and the southeastern provinces from the late Bronze Age into the Warring States centuries. Potters beat the leather-hard wall with a carved wooden paddle while supporting it from within with a stone anvil, a technique that both compacted the clay body and left an ornamental skin. The lozenge net, sometimes read as a stylized woven mat or basketry, belongs to a repertoire that also includes cord, chevron, and stamped-square patterns. The Warring States era (traditionally 475 to 221 BCE) saw the Zhou order dissolve into seven contending states, a period of ferocious military innovation matched by the philosophical ferment of Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist schools. Utilitarian ceramics like this jar were the workhorses of that world, their forms echoing, in humble clay, the swelling profiles of contemporary cast vessels. Survivals at this scale, unbroken, are uncommon. Item # 73483

Lot: 622 - Chinese Han Dynasty Pottery Bactrian Camel, TL Tested

Chinese Han Dynasty. A pottery Bactrian camel figure in red clay, standing on an integral plinth with the head raised and mouth open. The camel wears a fringed blanket and an openwork saddle. Across the valley between the humps are suspended two sheep and two fish, each supported by a length of rope. Traces of red and white pigment remain on the surface. This item has been tested using Thermoluminescent technology and has been found to date to 1800 years old plus or minus 200 years. A report will accompany the piece. Item # 195158

Lot: 623 - Han Dynasty Bronze Personal Seal (Yin), Ram Figure

East Asia, China, Han Dynasty. A personal seal cast in leaded bronze, with a square matrix surmounted by a zoomorphic handle in the form of a recumbent ram. The animal's legs are folded beneath a rounded body, with the head lifted and muzzle blunt. The surface carries earthen accretion and green cupric corrosion. The underside of the seal carries the intaglio seal face, pressed into damp clay to authenticate documents or mark property. Seals of this type, known as yin, were carried by administrators, merchants, and private individuals within the Han bureaucracy. The ram motif has been associated with auspicious symbolism, as the word for sheep, yang, was a homophone associated with concepts of prosperity in Chinese tradition. Please note that this seal contains up to 36% lead. Item # 204079

Lot: 624 - Han Dynasty Bronze Hu Wine Vessel, Garlic Head Form

East Asia, China, Han Dynasty. A cast bronze wine vessel of the hu type, with a globular belly tapering into a long neck that flares to an everted trumpet mouth, raised on a splayed ring foot. Two taotie mask escutcheons, modeled in relief along the shoulder, hold loose suspension rings, functioning as both lifting devices and symbolic guardian motifs. The surface bears a mineral encrustation of malachite green mottled with earthen ochre, consistent with burial. The elongated neck and bulbous body reflect the so-called "garlic head" (suantou) profile associated with the Han repertoire. Vessels of this type were used in the ceremonial pouring of wine at ancestral rites and banquets, and served as furnishings for both domestic and funerary contexts. Item # 202594

Lot: 625 - Warring States Nephrite Bi Disc + Ribbed Bead, Guwen Design

Chinese Warring States. A circular disc of nephrite worked to an even section and pierced at the center, its outer edge finished with a raised concentric border band framing the decorated field. Both faces are carved in low relief with guwen — the grain pattern — a dense, regular field of raised comma-spirals, each curl terminating in a trailing hook and set in concentric rows that follow the circumference of the disc. Along with a small bossed tubular bead, bi-conically drilled for suspension, also Warring States. EAch tested by XRF analysis and Shown to be nephrite jade. Item # 204224

Lot: 626 - Shang to Western Zhou Dagger Spear Blade with Tang, China

East Asia, China, Shang to Western Zhou Dynasty. A cast dagger-form spear blade, its leaf-shaped body tapering to a sharp point and set off from an integral rectangular insertion tang by a flaring transverse guard. Both faces carry cast decoration, now largely veiled beneath a dense crust of blue-green and cuprite-red corrosion. Small perforations pierce the tang, once securing the haft or grip with lashing or rivets. Blades of this construction were driven into a split wooden shaft or handle and bound fast, serving the armed retinues of Bronze Age China as weapons and, deposited in elite tombs, as markers of martial rank. The bronze industry of the Shang and Western Zhou is among the most technically accomplished of the ancient world, built on piece-mold casting in ceramic sections rather than the lost-wax method favored further west. Weapons issued from the same foundries that produced ritual vessels for ancestral sacrifice, and the two categories traveled together into the shaft tombs of the aristocracy: a lord was buried with the apparatus of feeding his ancestors and the apparatus of war. Tanged and socketed blades of this scale sat between the long-hafted ge halberd and the short dagger, and the surviving decoration on such pieces typically resolves into the abstracted zoomorphic vocabulary, taotie masks, cicada lappets, and interlaced dragon bands, that governs Chinese bronze ornament through the period. Item # 73484

Lot: 627 - Eastern Zhou Dynasty Mao Spearhead with Socketed Haft

East Asia, China, Eastern Zhou Dynasty. A leaf-shaped lance head, cast in a copper alloy and known in Chinese as a mao. The blade rises to a sharp point from a pronounced medial ridge running the full length of both faces, flanked by broad bevelled flats that taper to keen edges. Below the blade the shaft swells into a conical insertion socket, pierced by a transverse hole for the locking nail that secured the wooden haft, and finished with a band of incised geometric triangles now largely veiled by mineral accretion. The surface carries a dense blue-green cuprite and malachite encrustation shot through with red-brown oxides. A functional battlefield weapon, cast in quantity for infantry and chariot troops. Socketed spearheads of this type served Chinese armies across an extraordinary span, from the Shang through the Warring States (roughly the 17th to 3rd centuries BCE), and are prized for their leaf-shaped, multi-faceted profiles. The mao was paired in the Zhou arsenal with the dagger-axe (ge), the two often mounted together on a single shaft to form the halberd (ji), the standard armament of the chariot warrior. Its production reflects the industrialized piece-mould foundries of the period, in which sockets, ridges, and ornamental collars were cast integrally rather than forged, allowing standardized weapons to be turned out in the thousands for the escalating campaigns of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras. Item # 73485

Lot: 628 - Large Ming Dynasty Chinese Stone Guanyin Sculpture

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty, ca. 15th to 17th century CE. A carved stone sculpture of the bodhisattva Guanyin, seated with hands gathered at the waist in an offering gesture. The figure is robed in long, cascading sleeves, and the face is modeled with downcast eyes. Guanyin is identified by the small effigy of Amitabha Buddha set within her crown. In Mahayana belief, Amitabha is Guanyin's spiritual progenitor, and his image in her diadem signifies her role as his chief attendant. This detail also reflects her position as a guide for beings seeking rebirth in Amitabha's Western Paradise. Size: 10.1" L x 16.5" W x 26" H (25.7 cm x 41.9 cm x 66 cm) Item # 197331

Lot: 629 - 17th C. Ming / Qing Gilt Wood Buddha, XRF-Tested Gold

17th C. Ming Dynasty to Early Qing Dynasty. China, Ming to early Qing Dynasty, ca. 17th century CE. Carved wood figure of a seated Buddha, hands resting in a meditation gesture in the lap, with a high topknot, elongated earlobes, and a serene, downcast expression. The figure retains its original allover gilding, XRF tested and confirmed at over 20% gold content, applied over a red bole, a fine clay ground traditionally mixed with a binding agent such as animal glue or oil and colored with red ochre or cinnabar-based pigment, used to smooth the wood surface, provide adhesion for the gold leaf, and impart a warm reddish glow in areas where the gilding has thinned. This bole ground is visible in scattered areas of wear, particularly on the reverse. 7.5" H. Item # 204211

Lot: 630 - Ming Dynasty Gilt Figure of a Guardian with Lion, 17th C.

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A cast figure of a standing dignitary, robed and belted, one foot advanced over the back of a crouching Buddhist lion. The long tunic is worked in low relief with scrolling cloud roundels, the collar and hem finished with beaded borders, and a fitted headband caps the broad, heavy-browed face. Much of the original gilding survives over warm red-toned lacquer undertones, pooling in the recesses of the drapery. The whole rises from an integral domed base with a register of upturned lotus petals above a band of foliate scrollwork. The lion at his feet serves as a guardian companion, a creature traditionally set to repel malign influence, marking the figure as a protective or devotional image rather than a purely decorative one. The lion, commonly called a foo lion in the Western trade, entered Chinese art with Buddhism and by the Ming period had become the standard doorway sentinel, flanking temples, tombs, and official halls in pairs. Placed beneath a standing figure rather than beside it, the animal reads as an attribute of rank and spiritual authority, in the same visual grammar that gives bodhisattvas and Daoist worthies their animal mounts. The lotus-petal base is the giveaway of a devotional rather than secular commission: the upturned petal register belongs to the Buddhist altar vocabulary, and combined with the surviving gilding over red lacquer preparation it suggests the piece stood on a shrine or household altar. Gilt-lacquered metal figures of this scale were produced in quantity by Ming workshops for exactly that setting. Item # 73486

Lot: 631 - Ming Dynasty Chinese Tomb Attendant Figure - TL'd

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A mold-made terracotta attendant figure standing on a stepped hexagonal plinth, with traces of green, orange, white, black, and red mineral pigment. The figure holds a rectangular object, possibly a musical instrument or a wrapped parcel, against the chest with the right arm, while the left hand falls at the side. A domed cap tops the figure's head, and an ankle-length robe, cinched at the waist with a knotted sash, falls in modeled folds. Figures of this type, known as mingqi (spirit goods), were made for burial, populating the tomb with a retinue of servants, entertainers, and officials intended to accompany the deceased in the afterlife. Item # 202595

Lot: 632 - 3 Northern Song Dynasty Painted Ceramic Tomb Bricks

China, Northern Song Dynasty, ca. 960–1127 CE. A set of three painted ceramic tomb bricks or tiles, molded in relief with the figures of court attendants or servants, each clad in formal robes and holding an offering tray. The figures wear tall headdresses and long belted tunics, rendered in red and pale pigments still visible against the buff earthenware surface. Each brick would have formed part of a larger tomb wall tableau, assembled to represent a scene from the deceased's earthly life or to serve them symbolically in the afterlife. The modeling, flattened profile, and incised garment lines are characteristic of Northern Song funerary aesthetics, which favored dignified restraint and courtly realism over the exuberance of earlier Han or Tang traditions. Size of each brick: 12" W x 21.25" H (30.5 cm x 54 cm) Tomb bricks such as this often lined the burial chambers of elite or high-status individuals, and figures like this one served as guardians, servants, or ritual participants, ensuring abundance and propriety in the spirit world. Interestingly, each brock clearly shows the handprint of the maker - almost as if a maker's mark. The bricks were formed by hand, taking wet clay and pushing it into a reusable mold. Item # 195110

Lot: 633 - Song / Yuan Dynasty Jun Ware Vase, Yuhuchunping Form (TL'd)

East Asia, China, Song to Yuan Dynasty. A pear-shaped vase, or yuhuchunping, rising from an unglazed, splayed foot to a slender neck and trumpet rim. The body is covered in a sky-blue glaze characteristic of Jun ware, with crackle across the surface and pooling above the foot. Across one shoulder is a copper-derived purple splash, a crimson-to-lavender coloration associated with Jun ware. The lip shows a buff-brown edge where the glaze thinned in firing, and the foot ring reveals the stoneware body beneath. This piece has been tested using thermoluminescence (TL) analysis and has been found to be ancient and of the period stated. A full printed and bound report will accompany the item upon purchase. Item # 203337

Lot: 634 - Large Ming Dynasty Wood Buddha - Seated on Lotus Throne, Abhaya Mudra

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A large Chinese carved wood figure of Buddha seated in dhyanasana on a double lotus base, the right hand raised in abhaya mudra and the left resting on the knee. The head is carved with tightly curled hair rising to an ushnisha, above a serene face with downcast eyes and pendulous earlobes. Figures of this type served as altar images in temple and domestic worship. The abhaya mudra, the raised palm facing outward, is among the earliest and most universal gestures in Buddhist art, signifying protection, peace, and the calming of fear. Paired with the lowered left hand, it presents the Buddha as both approachable and sovereign. Wooden devotional sculpture of this scale was typically built up from a core of seasoned timber, gessoed, and then finished in mineral pigments and gilding; the losses visible here expose that construction sequence, a record of the object's long liturgical life in a temple setting. Item # 204212

Lot: 635 - Tang Dynasty Gilded Belt Plaque Assembly with Birds and Beasts, 8th C.

East Asia, China, Tang Dynasty. A complete belt garniture of ten gilded plaques, each cast in low relief and set against a finely punched ring-matted ground that throws the figures forward. Eight square and lozenge-form links carry birds in flight, recumbent lions, deer and other beasts; a shaped terminal shows two birds flanking a flaming motif, and a second, plain terminal closes the run. Every plaque retains its attachment holes and slotted apertures for the leather strap and its pendant tabs. Belts of this type were regulated insignia at the Tang court, their number and material declaring the wearer's rank, and gilded sets such as this one sat near the top of that hierarchy. Presented on a custom lucite display base. Tang sumptuary law fixed the composition of the official belt (dai) with unusual precision: statutes of the Kaiyuan era assigned jade and gold plaques to the highest ranks, gilded and plain metals to the middle grades, and iron or horn to the lowest, with the count of plaques itself a legible marker of office. Sets were buried with their owners, which is why so many survive as loose plaques rather than complete belts; an assembly retaining both terminals and a full run of links is comparatively uncommon.\n\nThe menagerie of lions, deer, and birds carried on the ring-matted ground reflects the cosmopolitan taste of Chang'an, where Sasanian and Sogdian metalworking conventions travelled the Silk Road and were absorbed into Chinese court design. The lion in particular is a foreign import to Chinese art, arriving with Buddhism and quickly naturalized as a guardian emblem.\n\nExamples from the McFadden Collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, and elsewhere in the United States and abroad. Drexel is currently hosting the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73487

Lot: 636 - Ming Dynasty Stone Frieze Panel, Buddhist Narrative

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty, ca. 1368 to 1644 CE. A large gray stone frieze panel carved in relief with a narrative vignette, likely drawn from the Buddha's life or an associated parable. The composition shows a central figure seated in meditation within a boat beneath a canopy suggestive of the bodhi tree, with wave forms below and a secondary monk-like attendant appearing to steady or accompany the vessel. Flanking the scene are standing attendants on small pedestals holding fans, while at right a crouching supporter lifts a haloed Buddha figure marked by a rosette nimbus. The panel was likely a tomb or temple register intended to be viewed at close range. Size: 28" L x 2.5" W x 17" H (71.1 cm x 6.4 cm x 43.2 cm); 19.75" H (50.2 cm) on included custom stand. Item # 199068

Lot: 637 - Song / Ming Dynasty Temple Wall Painting (XRF'd)

China, Song to Ming Dynasty, ca. 13th to 16th century CE. Pigment on plaster. A fragment of a temple wall painting depicting a celestial female attendant walking along a balustraded promenade, offering a scholar's rock on a tray. She wears layered robes, billowing scarves, and jewelry, including a headdress and beaded adornments. The face is rendered with rounded cheeks, almond-shaped eyes, and arched brows. The pigments have been tested via XRF (X-ray fluorescence) analysis.Size of fresco: 16.25" W x 31.25" H (41.3 cm x 79.4 cm); of frame: 25.5" W x 40.5" H (64.8 cm x 102.9 cm) Rendered with delicate brushwork and richly hued pigments, her face is serene and idealized, with soft arched brows, downcast eyes, and finely modeled features. Her coiffure is adorned with ornamental pins and floral elements, emphasizing her divine or noble status. Surrounding motifs-now partially lost-suggest swirling clouds or a celestial atmosphere, executed in a palette of soft jade greens, cinnabar reds, and muted earth tones. The stylistic elements and mineral pigment application are consistent with mural painting practices of the Ming Dynasty, reflecting themes of Buddhist devotion and heavenly beauty. Item # 195385

Lot: 638 - Tang Dynasty Gilded Crown with Phoenixes, Pagoda and Flames

East Asia, China, Tang Dynasty. A tall gilded crown assembled from sheet copper alloy, its domed inner cap built of three plates with a lower rim band and incised with a pair of peacocks amid leafy scrollwork. Over this rise eight openwork repousse panels: four long-tailed birds in flight across the front, two more behind, three flame elements at the center, flowering vines coiling over both sides, and a tiled temple pavilion set among blossoming branches on the reverse. Gilding survives in broad warm passages over a blue-green crystalline patina. Such elaborate headgear was almost certainly ceremonial rather than everyday dress, worn by a figure of high rank or mounted on a religious image. Supplied with a custom lidded display box on a stepped black lucite base. The vocabulary here is court iconography at its most legible. Paired birds with sweeping trailing tails read as fenghuang, the auspicious phoenix that in Tang usage signified imperial consorts, feminine virtue, and cosmic harmony, while the flame-shaped finials belong to the Buddhist repertoire of radiance and are common on mandorlas and reliquary fittings of the seventh and eighth centuries. The pagoda framed by flowering trees on the reverse points the same direction, suggesting a paradise scene rather than purely secular ornament. Comparable openwork gilded sheet-metal headgear survives principally from tombs and from Buddhist reliquary deposits, where crowns were placed on sculptures as well as on the dead. Sheet-metal working of this kind, hammered thin, chased from the front, pierced, then mercury-gilded and riveted to a structural cap, was a specialist trade in the Tang capitals, and complete assemblies rarely survive because the thin plates fracture and separate. Item # 73488

Lot: 639 - Ming Dynasty Chinese Wood Buddha Sculpture, Padmasana

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty, ca. 16th to 17th century CE. A gessoed and painted wood sculpture of Shakyamuni Buddha, seated in a pose known in Chinese as Ch'ien Pai Yi Hua-shen (The Hundred Billion Human Manifestations), a meditative posture rooted in Indian iconographic tradition and transmitted to China through Central Asia. This title reflects the Mahayana belief in the Buddha's emanations

Lot: 640 - 18th C. Chinese Wood Daoist Deity Figure, Oxblood Lacquer

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty. A carved wood figure of a seated Daoist deity, finished in oxblood lacquer across the folds of a high-collared robe. The figure is seated in a formal posture atop a plain plinth, feet resting on a low footrest, with the face inclined slightly beneath a carved, lotus-crowned high hat. The hands cradle a ceremonial attribute, possibly a ruyi scepter or related ritual implement, in a gesture associated with blessing and authority. The pigmented surface shows craquelure consistent with age. Figures of this type were placed in temple halls or family shrines, where they were understood to protect devotees, guide rituals, and offer spiritual counsel. The figure represents a Daoshi, a Daoist master, priest, and ritual specialist. The term "Daoshi," literally "master of the Tao," designates the ordained priests and adepts of religious Daoism, who served their communities as ritual specialists, healers, and interpreters of the cosmic order. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, such figures were commonly rendered in the guise of dignified officials and scholars, their high hats and formal robes signaling rank within the celestial bureaucracy that Daoist cosmology mirrored on earth. The precise identity of an individual deity, drawn from the vast Daoist pantheon of star-lords, immortals, and deified sages, is often difficult to fix once a statue has been separated from its altar and inscriptions, but the type belongs firmly to the devotional sculpture that furnished temples and prosperous household shrines across late imperial China. Item # 192278

Lot: 641 - Chinese Sandstone Bodhisattva Figure | Cintamani Jewel

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty. A bodhisattva figure seated in meditation, carved from reddish sandstone. The figure has downcast eyes and a rounded face, framed by a foliate crown rising above the brow. The robes fall in folds across the shoulders and lap, with the hem extending over a rectangular throne. The hands rest in dhyana mudra, the gesture of meditation, cradling a spherical wish-granting jewel, or cintamani. A relief quadruped, possibly a lion or mythic mount, appears at the base of the throne. The cintamani is a recurring symbol in Buddhist iconography, associated with the fulfillment of prayers and the manifestation of the Dharma. Held in dhyana mudra, it identifies the figure as a bodhisattva of compassion, most commonly identified as Kshitigarbha (Dizang) or a form of Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin). The quadruped at the throne base is consistent with the lion mounts and guardian beasts found in Chinese Buddhist sculpture, associated with protective and royal symbolism. Item # 203855

Lot: 642 - 19th C. Qing Dynasty Bronze You Vessel | Shang-Style Revival

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty, ca. 19th century CE; cast in the style of late Shang Dynasty bronzes. This handled ritual wine vessel, or you, reflects the Qing-period practice of studying and reinterpreting early Chinese bronze forms, part of a broader tradition of scholarly revivalism. Cast in leaded brass, the vessel takes the flattened oval form of a Shang-period you, originally used in ancestral rites, raised on a ring foot and fitted with a domed, finial-topped lid. An arched bail handle spans the short axis, secured to the shoulder by zoomorphic terminals. Low-relief decoration covers the body in bands of stylized dragon, bird, and geometric motifs, with a raised taotie mask centered on the lid. Size: 10.3" L x 9.2" W x 15.3" H (26.2 cm x 23.4 cm x 38.9 cm) Item # 199053

Lot: 643 - Chinese Pair of Guardian Lion Incense Stands with Gilt Traces, 18th-19th C.

East Asia, China, late Ming to Qing Dynasty. A matched pair of cast guardian lions, one with the right forepaw raised, the other with the left, heads turned toward each other with fanged mouths agape, curled manes, beaded collars, plumed tails and pricked ears. The male pins a brocade ball beneath his paw; the female shelters a cub. From each back rises a slender post supporting a deep cup for incense, its rim mounted with a zoomorphic mask gripping a loose suspension ring. Traces of gilding survive across manes, haunches and cups. Paired shishi of this type flanked household and temple altars, warding off malign influence while perfuming the offering table. The shishi, or Buddhist lion, entered Chinese art with Buddhism itself, an animal no Chinese artisan had seen and therefore rendered as a leonine hybrid of mastiff, dragon and myth. By the Ming and Qing periods the convention was fixed: lions appear in male and female pairs, the male with a forepaw on an embroidered ball (variously read as the world, or as a knot of cosmic energy), the female restraining a cub, together signifying dominion and lineage. Placed at gates, tombs and altar fronts, they served as apotropaic sentries.\n\nThe legacy record describes one lion as holding "a lidded bowl"; the object appears rather to be a cub gnawed beneath the paw on one figure and a brocade ball on the other, the standard male-female pairing. Item # 73489

Lot: 644 - Ming Dynasty Seated Guanyin Bodhisattva with Amitabha Crown

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A crowned and bejeweled bodhisattva sits in dhyanasana, the right hand lifted in vitarka mudra while the left rests open in the lap. Hollow cast in bronze, the figure wears a high foliate tiara whose central niche encloses a miniature seated Amitabha, the attribute that identifies Guanyin, Bodhisattva of Compassion. Pendulous earlobes carry floral discs, a beaded necklace falls to a jeweled clasp, and the softly modeled robes are incised with scrolling foliate bands that continue across the back. The face is broad and serene, eyes downcast above a faint smile, with traces of gilding lingering in the recesses. An altar image intended for private devotion or a temple shrine. Guanyin, the Chinese form of Avalokiteshvara, became the most widely venerated figure in late imperial Buddhism, invoked by name in the Lotus Sutra as the deity who hears the cries of the world. The small Amitabha lodged in the crown marks Guanyin as that Buddha's emanation and attendant in the Western Pure Land, and is the single most reliable iconographic test for the identification.\n\nThe combination of a tall openwork foliate crown, dense incised scrollwork on the drapery, and rounded, fleshy facial modeling is characteristic of 16th to 17th century workshops, when hollow-cast devotional images were produced in quantity for household altars and monastery halls. Fire gilding was routinely applied over such surfaces; centuries of handling and incense smoke typically leave it only in the sheltered folds and recesses, much as here. Item # 73490

Lot: 645 - Qing Dynasty Guardian Lion Censer with Openwork Lid, 19th C.

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty. A mythological guardian lion cast in the round, head wrenched back over one shoulder, jaws flung open around bared fangs beneath a mane of tight snail-shell curls. The hollow body wears an elaborate caparison of engraved panels, studded bosses, beaded swags and tasseled fringe, terminating in splayed claw feet. The removable high-domed lid is pierced with scrolling floral vine, allowing incense smoke to escape, and is surmounted by a lion cub finial paired with a lotus bud. Traces of the original gilding survive across the mane, blanket and lid. Such caparisoned lions, cast in facing pairs, served as incense burners on Buddhist and domestic altars, their smoke breathed out through the openwork crown as an apotropaic guardian's exhalation. The lion (shizi) entered Chinese art with Buddhism, an animal known first from tribute and text rather than observation, which accounts for the wholly imagined physiognomy: bulbous eyes, curled mane, and a canine muzzle. As the mount and defender of Manjushri, the lion became a guardian of thresholds and altars alike. Paired examples are conventionally distinguished by attribute, the male pinning a brocade ball, the female sheltering a cub, and the cub perched atop this lid, riding a saddle of its own, marks the piece as the female of such a pair. The lotus bud beside it carries the Buddhist reading of purity and rebirth. Qing metalworkers favored mercury gilding over cast surfaces of this kind, worn here to scattered highlights. Item # 73491

Lot: 646 - Qing Dynasty Carved Figure | Mahasthamaprapta (Daishizhi)

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty, ca. 18th to 19th century CE. This exquisitely carved and exceptionally rare depiction represents Mahasthamaprapta, meaning “He who has obtained Great Power” in Sanskrit. A bodhisattva embodying the power of wisdom, Mahasthamaprapta is portrayed as both male and female, though more commonly as a female figure in China, where she is known as Daishizhi. She channels her immense energy, wisdom, and compassion toward the salvation of all beings. Mahasthamaprapta is primarily venerated in Pure Land Buddhism, a major branch of Mahayana Buddhism in East Asia, where she and Guanyin serve as the principal attendants of Buddha Amitabha. The three often appear together in paintings and sculptures, forming a sacred trinity, Amitabha at the center, Mahasthamaprapta to his right, and Guanyin to his left. This triad frequently occupies the main altar of Mahayana Buddhist temples. In Chinese iconography, Daishizhi is depicted as a radiant young woman with a serene expression, bearing a striking resemblance to Guanyin. However, her distinguishing feature is the vial of compassion’s dew, delicately placed in her crown. She is sometimes shown with hands pressed together in anjali mudra, a gesture of reverence and devotion. Item # 192441

Lot: 647 - 18th C. Chinese Qing Painted Wood Arhat Figures (pr)

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty, ca. 18th century CE. A pair of painted wooden lohan figures, each seated on a backless, raised pedestal and dressed in the robe of a Buddhist monk, its folds falling over the shoulders, arms, and legs. The robe crosses at the neck and is fastened at the shoulder with a round clasp. One figure conceals both hands within the sleeves of the robe, suggesting meditative

Lot: 648 - 19th C. Qing Dynasty Wood Lohan Statue, Consecration Niche

East Asia, China, Qing Dynasty, ca. 19th century CE. A carved wooden figure of a monk standing on a plinth, hands clasped in front of the chest in Anjali Mudra (also known as Namaskara Mudra), a gesture of reverence. The figure wears a monk's robe with a red collar crossed at the neck and secured with a clasp. The robe falls in two sections: the upper section is blue-green with leaf-like designs, over a lime-green lower section. The garment is framed by sleeves with decorative borders. The face depicts an elderly man, with wrinkles on the forehead and around the mouth. The eyes are polished black glass, set within defined lids. A carved niche on the back of the figure indicates that it was consecrated in an eye-opening ceremony, a ritual in which sacred elements would have been placed within the statue to imbue it with spiritual significance. Item # 193619

Lot: 649 - Gandharan Schist Frieze Fragment with Atlas Figures

South Asia, Ancient Gandhara, Pakistan or Afghanistan. A carved gray schist panel, once part of a larger architectural frieze, stacks two muscular figures within a raised rectangular border. Above, a bearded man grips a club, his brows furrowed and his beard rendered in deep chiseled locks. He rides the shoulders of a heavier, loincloth-clad wrestler type who also clutches a club in both fists, the two heads turned in opposite directions in a deliberately awkward torsion. The modeling is high-relief and volumetric, the flesh softly swollen, the hair cut in crisp curling ridges of Hellenistic derivation. Such paired atlantes and strongman figures typically served as supporting brackets or plinth decoration on Buddhist stupas and monastic complexes, where their strain visually bore the weight of the sacred structure above. The workshops of ancient Gandhara, spanning the Peshawar valley and the Kabul river basin, produced the most thoroughly Hellenized sculpture of the Buddhist world. Under Kushan patronage from the first through fifth centuries CE, local carvers absorbed a Greco-Roman vocabulary transmitted along the trade corridors of the Silk Road: acanthus, Corinthian pilasters, wine-drinking revelers, and above all the atlas, the crouching or straining strongman borrowed from Mediterranean architecture to carry entablatures and stupa plinths.\n\nThese Gandharan atlantes are rarely divine. They are squat, potbellied, sometimes grotesque, and often shown in pairs or files along a stupa drum, their clubs and knotted muscles a distant echo of Herakles, who himself entered Buddhist iconography as Vajrapani, the club-bearing guardian of the Buddha. The club held by both figures here makes that lineage explicit, though whether a specific narrative or purely decorative caryatid function was intended cannot be determined from a fragment. Item # 73492

Lot: 650 - Gandharan Schist Head of a Bodhisattva with Urna and Mustache

Central Asia, Ancient Gandhara, present-day Pakistan or Afghanistan. A large head of a bodhisattva carved in gray schist, broken from a once-standing or seated figure. The face is composed in meditative calm: heavy lidded eyes beneath arched brows, a circular urna set between them, full lips framed by a crisply combed mustache. Long wavy hair sweeps back from a center parting into curls at the shoulders and gathers into a topknot, the princely coiffure that distinguishes a bodhisattva from a Buddha. Remnants of a halo survive behind the head, and a crystallized tan-brown patina overlays the stone. Almost certainly architectural, set into the sculptural program of a stupa or monastic shrine in the Peshawar valley. Mounted on a custom metal display base. Gandharan sculpture is the meeting point of two worlds. Following Alexander's campaigns and the long Indo-Greek, Saka, Parthian, and Kushan occupations of the northwest, workshops around Peshawar and Taxila translated Buddhist subjects into a visual language borrowed from the Hellenistic Mediterranean: naturalistic drapery, classical proportion, and hair rendered as loose Apollonian waves rather than the schematic snail-shell curls of Indian tradition. The mustache and coiffed locks belong to that hybrid vocabulary and mark a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who remains in the world out of compassion, dressed with the jewelry and long hair of a prince rather than the shaved head and monastic robe of the Buddha. The urna, a tuft of hair between the brows, is one of the thirty-two lakshanas, the auspicious marks of a great being. Under Kanishka and his successors such heads populated the niches and friezes of stupa complexes, where the life of Shakyamuni and his previous incarnations unfolded in continuous narrative relief. Item # 73493

Lot: 651 - 18th C. Mughal Carved Sandstone Panel, ex-Sotheby's

South Asia, India, Northern region, ca. 18th century CE. A large carved architectural panel of mottled pink sandstone, rectangular in form, adorned with Mughal motifs. The relief features a central cusped arch window flanked by two smaller arched panels, each surmounted by floral medallions and framed within recessed rectangular borders. The composition reflects the symmetry and ornamental style characteristic of Mughal architectural stonework, drawing on Persian artistic traditions. Presented on an old custom wood base. Size: 40" L x 1.5" W x 25.5" H (101.6 cm x 3.8 cm x 64.8 cm); 28" H (71.1 cm) on included custom stand. This item is oversized and requires special shipping. Item # 196875

Lot: 652 - Ming Dynasty Green Glazed Temple Shrine Model, 14th-17th C.

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A miniature temple facade in slab-built earthenware, its front massed with molded architectural detail beneath a serrated ridge tile. Tiers of amber-glazed floral bosses and dougong-style bracket sets carry projecting eaves above a deep rectangular opening, flanked by paneled doors, latticework, and pendant drops picked out in orange. The apple-green lead glaze pools thickly in the recesses and stops abruptly at the sides, leaving the buff clay body and its combed working marks exposed. The hollow interior once held a figure or offering; models of this type were made as funerary furnishings, supplying the tomb with a shrine in perpetuity. A small square vent pierces one flank. Chinese tombs were furnished as houses for the dead, and the mingqi (spirit goods) placed inside them reproduced in clay everything the deceased might require: granaries, wells, watchtowers, servants, and shrines. Architectural models are among the most valuable of these for historians, since the timber buildings they imitate have almost entirely vanished. Here the bracket clusters (dougong) that cantilever the eaves outward, the serrated ridge cresting, and the paneled door leaves preserve the vocabulary of Ming provincial temple carpentry in fired clay. The green and amber lead glazes descend from the Tang sancai tradition and were revived on a large scale by northern Chinese kilns, notably in Shanxi, for both roof tiles and funerary wares. Fired at low temperature, such glazes were never meant for the table; their brilliance was reserved for architecture, real and miniature alike. Item # 73494

Lot: 653 - Ellora Style Schist Bust of a Prince or Deity with Lotus, 10th C.

South Asia, India, Ellora style. A crowned figure emerges from the broken stone with the composure of a temple deity, carved in gray-black schist and preserved from the waist up. The tall conical headdress rises in tiers of incised spirals above a serene face with high arched brows and downcast, almond eyes. Beaded and petal-form necklaces cover the chest; a sash crosses the torso, and the surviving hand cradles a lotus bloom. A second, smaller figure once flanked the shoulder, suggesting an attendant or subsidiary deity from a larger architectural group. Scattered red pigment across the surface is the residue of puja, marking long devotional use of the image. Likely a fragment of an exterior niche sculpture from a Deccan temple. Set on a custom hardwood display base. The rock-cut and structural temples of the Deccan, above all the Ellora caves in present-day Maharashtra, established a vocabulary of high jatamukuta-like crowns, layered bead-and-petal necklaces, and softly modeled torsos that regional workshops carried through the Rashtrakuta and post-Rashtrakuta centuries. Figures of this type populated the exterior niches and doorway surrounds of temple exteriors, where princely donors, celestial attendants, and minor divinities were carved in the same idiom as the principal icons, distinguished chiefly by attribute and scale.\n\nThe lotus in the raised hand is not decorative. Held by Vishnu, Surya, Padmapani, and a range of attendant deities, it functions as a marker of purity and divine emergence, and its presence here argues for a divine rather than purely secular reading of the figure, notwithstanding the princely jewels. The red pigment surviving in the crevices is sindura or kumkum, applied during worship, evidence that the image received offerings rather than serving as mere architectural ornament. Item # 73495

Lot: 654 - South Indian Standing Vishnu Sculpture with Flaming Prabhavali, 16th C.

South Asia, India, Hindu. A heavy cast figure of Vishnu stands in rigid frontal samabhanga within a flaming prabhavali, its ring edged with tongues of fire and crowned by a leaf-form finial. Six arms fan outward, holding the chakra, conch, mace and other attributes of the god. The deity wears a tall conical kiritamukuta, elongated ear ornaments, and a close-fitting dhoti chased with beaded and lattice bands. Modeling is crisp: broad brow, arched lids, and a firm mouth. The figure rises from a lotiform footing set upon a multi-tiered square plinth, itself a period base drawn from a different sculpture. Likely a processional or shrine icon (utsava-murti), made for worship rather than display. Vishnu, the preserver in the Hindu trinity, is identified by the sudarshana chakra (discus) and panchajanya (conch) borne in his upper hands, emblems of the turning cosmos and of primordial sound. Standing images in samabhanga, still and symmetrical, present the god in his sthanaka aspect, the form appropriate to the sanctum and to festival procession, when bronze icons were bathed, dressed, and carried through the temple town.\n\nThe flaming prabhavali, a fire-fringed arch enclosing the deity, marks the sacred field of the image. Six arms are unusual for Vishnu, who is most often four-armed; multiplied arms typically signal an emphatic or tantric aspect, and the identification here follows the legacy attribution rather than a securely matched textual form.\n\nSouth Indian workshops of the post-Vijayanagara period continued the lost-wax casting traditions codified under the Cholas, producing icons of considerable weight and surface refinement into the 16th and 17th centuries. Item # 73496

Lot: 655 - Rajasthan Sandstone Head of a Celestial Being, 11th-15th C.

South Asia, Northern India, Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh. A serene face emerges from buff sandstone, broken from the body of a once life-size temple figure. The carver gave him wide almond eyes beneath thin arched brows, a fleshy mouth framed by a trim goatee, and a full-lipped smile of the sort that animates medieval North Indian shrine sculpture. The coiffure is the tour de force: spiral locks tumbling past the ears, knotted bunches above the left sideburn, and a floral element worked into the crest, with a heavy disc earring surviving at the right. Traces of the original stucco surfacing cling in the recesses. Likely a gandharva, a celestial musician, or an attendant divinity from the exterior program of a Hindu or Jain temple. Temple building across Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh between the 11th and 15th centuries covered shrine walls in tiers of carved figures: presiding deities in their niches, and around them a populous heaven of apsaras, gandharvas, dikpalas, and attendants. Gandharvas, the celestial musicians of Hindu and Jain cosmology, appear in flight registers and on doorframes, often paired and playing instruments, their hair dressed in elaborate coils and their faces given the smooth ovoid geometry seen here. The local sandstones, buff and pink Vindhyan beds and the Bansi Paharpur stone of eastern Rajasthan, carve crisply and take fine detail, which is why the workshops of Khajuraho, Osian, and the Solanki temples of the northwest could sustain such density of ornament. Many such figures were finished with a thin stucco skin and pigment, of which only scattered traces usually survive. Item # 73497

Lot: 656 - Indian Brass Shrine | Virabhadra with Daksha and Sati

South Asia, India, ca. 18th to 19th century CE. A five-piece freestanding brass shrine depicting Virabhadra, the fierce emanation of Shiva, flanked by Daksha and Sati. The central crowned figure of Virabhadra stands with four arms, holding a sword and rectangular shield in the lower hands and a bow and arrow in the upper pair, the figure accented with ornaments and sacred thread. To his proper right is Daksha, the goat-headed figure shown with hands in anjali mudra (gesture of devotion), and to his proper left stands Sati, Shiva's wife and daughter of Daksha. The three figures are slotted individually into a tiered South Indian base engraved with geometric detailing. Behind them rises the cast prabhavali (arch), topped by a kirtimukha mask and crowned with a five-headed naga canopy, symbolic of divine protection. Size: 2.8" L x 6" W x 7.4" H (7.1 cm x 15.2 cm x 18.8 cm) Item # 197500

Lot: 657 - 19th C. Indian Wood Devi Figure, Articulated Arms, Tamil Nadu

South Asia, India, Tamil Nadu. A standing female divinity carved from wood, her softly modeled body rising nude but for lavish ornament: a tiered beaded torque descends between full breasts, a forehead tilaka and pendant marks the brow, and heavy disc earrings weight the lobes. The oval face wears an inward, benevolent expression, hallmark of South Indian devotional sculpture. Traces of red and ochre pigment cling to the surface, remnants of a once-polychromed skin. Most remarkable are the arms, separately carved and pinned at the shoulders so they articulate. Likely a form of Devi, a consort, or an auspicious celestial female, she may have served a domestic shrine or processional context, dressed and adorned by devotees across the ritual year. Item # 203879

Lot: 658 - Khmer Ganesha Kneeling in Royal Pose, Angkor Period

South East Asia, Cambodia, Khmer Empire, Angkor period. A cast figure of Ganesha kneeling in royal pose atop an integral stepped rectangular pedestal, the elephant head turned slightly with pendulous trunk curving across the chest. He wears a tiered conical crown over a pleated chignon-band, beaded pendant necklace, armlets, and a belted sampot with fanned frontal panels finely incised at the back. A serpent coils over the left breast, and each hand grasps a ceremonial attribute. The modeling favors soft, rounded volumes over ornament, a hallmark of Khmer bronzeworking, and the surface has matured to a mottled blue-green. Small shrine images of this type were cast by the lost-wax method for domestic and temple worship of the remover of obstacles. Ganesha, elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, entered Southeast Asia with Indic religion and was quickly naturalized by the Khmer, who honored him as Vinayaka, the lord of beginnings invoked before travel, construction, and ritual. Angkor-period devotion was famously syncretic: Shaiva, Vaishnava, and Mahayana Buddhist cults shared temple precincts and royal patronage, and Ganesha crossed those boundaries with unusual ease, appearing on lintels, in shrine niches, and as portable images kept for household veneration. The kneeling posture seen here, with one knee raised and the body poised as if attending a superior, is distinctively Khmer rather than Indian, where Ganesha is more often shown seated or dancing. The serpent worn across the torso stands in for the sacred thread, an attribute the god shares with his father Shiva. Item # 73498

Lot: 659 - Khmer Mirror with Deity Holding Lotus Buds, 9th-15th C.

South East Asia, Cambodia, Khmer culture. A small cast mirror whose disc carries, in low relief, a crowned deity seated on a lotus pedestal, arms raised and each hand closed around a lotus bud. A raised ring encircles the figure, from which incised rays radiate outward in the manner of a flaming aureole, the whole bordered by a twisted rope moulding. Below the disc extends a ribbed tang handle, notched along its edges for grip. The reverse is plain, the polished face that once returned a reflection. Mirrors of this kind served both toilette and devotional purposes in the Khmer world, where the reflecting disc doubled as an emblem of clarity and of the sun. Mounted on a custom display base. The Khmer empire, centered on Angkor between the 9th and 15th centuries, absorbed Hindu and Buddhist iconography into an idiom of its own while retaining older animist strains. Its foundries were among the finest in Southeast Asia, casting temple fittings, palanquin hooks, ritual bells, and personal implements in copper alloy alongside the monumental sandstone sculpture for which the culture is better known. The radiating aureole and lotus throne seen here belong to a shared devotional vocabulary: the lotus rising unstained from muddy water as a figure of purity, the encircling flame as the aura of divine presence. Small handled mirrors of this type occupy an ambiguous register between the cosmetic and the votive, and are frequently recovered from both domestic and temple contexts. Item # 73499

Lot: 660 - Burmese Gilt Lacquered Buddha Statue | Jambupati Throne

Southeast Asia, Burma (Myanmar), ca. late 19th to early 20th century CE. A stunning wooden Buddha statue, lacquered and gilded, seated in dhyanasana on a rectangular pedestal with a massive, intricately carved back panel forming a magnificent throne / shrine. His hands are positioned in the bhumisparsha mudra, and his eyes are inlaid with glass or enamel. He wears an elaborate headband crown adorned with red glass, along with a large engraved necklace and bangles on his wrists. The back panel features intricate openwork depicting nagas, mythical serpentine or dragon-like creatures, while a spire finial resembling a flaming ushnisha crowns the top. This ornate enthroned Buddha is often associated with the Jambupati tradition, a story that may have originated from Indian sources. In Myanmar lore, King Jambupati was an arrogant and powerful ruler who sought to assert his dominance over all other kings. To humble him, the Buddha manifested a magnificent jeweled palace and appeared seated on an elaborate throne, adorned in royal regalia. Witnessing the Buddha's supreme grandeur, Jambupati was overcome with awe and realized the insignificance of worldly power. Humbled, he renounced his arrogance, accepted the Buddha's teachings, and eventually became a devoted follower. Item # 192440

Lot: 661 - 17th C. Burmese Shan Style Gilded Alabaster Buddha Head

Southeast Asia, Burma, Shan States. Southeast Asia, Burma (Myanmar), Shan style, ca. 1600 to 1799 CE. A Buddha head carved from pale alabastrine marble, with downcast eyes above an aquiline nose and upturned lips. Arched, incised brows frame the forehead, and elongated earlobes descend toward the jaw. The ushnisha swells into a domed chignon crowned by a pointed lotus-bud finial. Traces of gilding remain on the stone, and red pigment survives on the reverse. Item # 203698

Lot: 662 - 19th C. Burmese Mandalay Wood Buddha, Glass Inlay

Southeast Asia, Myanmar (Burma), Mandalay period. A standing Buddha figure carved from a single block of wood. The oval face has arched brows, downcast eyes, and a smiling mouth, above an elongated body wrapped in monastic robes rendered in cascading folds. Traces of black and red lacquer remain on the surface, and the hem and sash retain rows of glass inlay set into thayo relief, with small mirrored discs and floral bands. The figure stands on a lotus base, with hands originally positioned in a lowered gesture. Images of this type were produced in the Mandalay region during the 19th century and served as focal points for merit-making, installed in shrines, monasteries, and household altars. Item # 203877

Lot: 663 - Khmer Large Lidded Vessel with Incised Concentric Bands, 9th-12th C.

Southeast Asia, Cambodia, Khmer, Angkor period. A broad two-part cast vessel of unusual size, its shallow lower pan capped by a close-fitting domed cover. The lid rises from a wide concave collar rim to a gently raised crown incised with five multiple concentric ring bands, turned crisply on the surface. The pan repeats the motif in a single ring below its rim, with faint horizontal banding circling the exterior wall; two small perforations in the side once anchored a handle or suspension fitting. The alloy carries a rich blue-green cuprous patina with russet flashes. Most likely a domestic cooking utensil for baking or frying, the sealed chamber trapping heat in the manner of later Southeast Asian covered pans, though a serving or presentation role cannot be ruled out. Angkorian metalworkers supplied the temple complexes and elite households of the Khmer empire with a wide repertory of cast copper-alloy utensils: footed bowls, kendis, lime containers, betel boxes, and lidded pans of this kind. Their decoration is characteristically restrained, relying on lathe-turned or compass-drawn concentric rings rather than figural relief, an aesthetic that distinguishes Khmer utilitarian bronzes from the more ornate ritual images produced in the same workshops. Large flat-bottomed covered pans are comparatively scarce in the surviving corpus, and their function remains debated: bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat and the Bayon depict cooking and food preparation with vessels of similar profile, supporting a culinary reading, while the tight-fitting lid and the pair of side perforations have also been read as evidence for a portable food carrier. Item # 73500

Lot: 664 - Khmer Style Standing Shiva Figure with Celt and Kamandalu, Thailand

South East Asia, Thailand, Khmer or Lopburi style. A four-armed deity stands frontally at attention, solid cast and finished with crisp chased detail: a beaded collar, ridged armlets, anklets, and a pleated sampot cinched by a rosette-clasped belt that falls in a fan-shaped panel between the thighs. The conical chignon-crown rises above a broad, serene face with incised brows and long earlobes. The surviving upper right hand grips a celt (parashu, an axe head), emblem of the power to sever ignorance, while the lower left holds a kamandalu, the ascetic's water flask carrying purifying nectar. Together the attributes point to Shiva, though an Avalokiteshvara reading has also been proposed for figures of this type. Attachment tangs remain intact. Set on an old custom hardwood block base. Bronze imagery of this type sits at the crossroads of Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist devotion in mainland Southeast Asia, where the same regal, four-armed, sampot-clad body could be read as Shiva or as a Bodhisattva depending on the attributes placed in its hands. The ambiguity is not sloppiness on the part of the casters; royal patrons in the Dvaravati, pre-Khmer, and Lopburi spheres supported both cults, sometimes in the same foundation. The comparanda most often cited for standing bronzes from northeastern Thailand are the images recovered from hoards in the Buriram region, the Prakhon Chai group foremost among them, buried caches of consecrated metal figures that preserved their patinas and their attachment tangs. Those tangs, retained here, once secured the figure to a fitted pedestal or a processional mount, evidence that images of this scale were meant to be carried and installed rather than simply set on an altar. Item # 73501

Lot: 665 - Thai Seated Buddha Shakyamuni in Bhumisparsha Mudra, 18th C.

South East Asia, Thailand. A cast copper-alloy Buddha Shakyamuni seated in half lotus upon a tiered throne, its upper register ringed with beaded and lappet-form petals. The right hand falls over the knee in bhumisparsha mudra, the earth-touching gesture that calls the ground to witness enlightenment, while the left rests upturned in the lap. Broad shoulders taper to a smooth torso crossed by an incised sanghati hem; the face is composed, with lowered lids, arched brows, and elongated lobes. Tight snail-shell curls rise to an ushnisha crowned by a flame finial, the rasmi that marks transcendent wisdom. Surfaces carry a dark greenish-brown patina. Such images served as devotional icons for temple altars and household shrines. Buddhist tradition places the historical Buddha's birth at Lumbini Gardens, in what is now Rummindei in southern Nepal. His mother Maya died on the seventh day after his birth, and he was raised by her younger sister Mahaprajapati. Reared amid the luxuries of a royal palace, he is said to have excelled in both learning and the martial arts, married Yashodhara, and fathered a son, Rahula. Four encounters outside the palace walls awakened him to the sufferings shared by all people, birth, aging, sickness, and death, and he renounced his princely rank for the life of a mendicant. The flame finial atop the ushnisha is a hallmark of Thai Buddhist bronzes from the Sukhothai period onward, an innovation that lengthened the silhouette and gave visual form to the radiance of enlightenment. The tiered lotus throne, with its double register of petals above a plain moulded plinth, remained a standard support for Ayutthaya and later Rattanakosin altar figures. Item # 73502

Lot: 666 - Dong Son Frog Form Lime Container with Spiral Decoration

South East Asia, Vietnam, Dong Son culture. A squat cast frog crouches on splayed limbs, its broad grinning mouth and bulging concentric eyes rendered with the same restless line that covers the rest of the body. Dense spiral and hatched banding sheathes the back and haunches, the legs themselves formed as raised coils, and a circular aperture opens at the center of the spine to admit and dispense powdered lime. Containers of this type served the chewing of betel quid, lime being the reagent that releases the areca nut's alkaloids. The frog carries agricultural weight in the region as a rain herald tied to the monsoon and the flooded paddy, so the choice of creature for a prestige personal vessel was likely deliberate rather than merely charming. Scholarship once held that the cultures of Southeast Asia were largely derivative, shaped from outside by India and China. Excavation of Dong Son material overturned that reading: the civilization proved indigenous to the region and stands as the source of Bronze Age metallurgy across mainland Southeast Asia, its great drums and cast ornaments distributed by sea over an extraordinary geographic range. The Dong Son are also credited with transforming the Red River Delta into the rice-growing heartland it has remained throughout recorded history, an achievement that makes the frog, herald of the rains, something more than decorative. Traces of Dong Son style persist in the metalwork and ornament of the region long after the culture itself dispersed. Item # 73503

Lot: 667 - Tibetan Carved Bone Ritual Apron (Rus Gyan) with Arm Ornaments, 19th C.

East Asia, Tibet, Tibetan Buddhist. A tantric ritual apron, or rus gyan, assembled from thousands of hand-cut bone beads strung into swagged lattices and anchored by pierced openwork plaques. Five arched panels form the central register, each carved in high relief with a standing deity beneath a flowering canopy, flanked by rosette-carved spacers and tubular toggles. Two matching arm ornaments accompany the apron, worked in the same beadwork idiom. Such regalia clothed the Ngakpa, the non-monastic tantric yogi, during charnel ground practice and wrathful deity rites, the bone itself declaring impermanence and the practitioner's release from attachment to the body. Professionally mounted on a linen-covered panel within a custom lucite display case. Bone aprons belong to the rus pa'i rgyan, the "ornaments of bone" worn by tantric adepts and depicted on wrathful deities such as Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini. In canonical descriptions the six bone ornaments (crown, earrings, necklace, armlets, bracelets, and the apron or girdle) correspond to the six perfections, transforming charnel imagery into a vocabulary of realization rather than morbidity. The material was traditionally drawn from human remains offered at sky burial grounds, which recast the reminder of death as a working tool of practice. Aprons of this scale, with figural plaques carved in miniature architectural niches, were labor-intensive commissions and were kept by monasteries and lineage holders rather than individual practitioners. Examples from the Mary McFadden collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, among other venues in the United States and abroad. Drexel is currently hosting the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73504

Lot: 668 - Nepalese Repousse Aureole with Twelve Deities, 14th C.

South Asia, Nepal, Newar tradition. A hammered and repousse copper aureole (prabhamandala) built to stand behind a Buddha image, its arched openwork field pierced into scrolling flowering vines and interlacing serpents. The large silhouetted recess at center once received the standing figure itself, now absent. Twelve high-relief deities in gilded roundels ascend both edges, each seated on lotus scrollwork, with a yoni and lingam set at the upper center and a crowned figure surmounting the apex. Traces of red pigment and mercury gilding survive across the surface. Such backplates were assembled with the cast image and its base into a single shrine ensemble, the radiance made literal in metal. Mounted on a custom stand. Nepal's Kathmandu Valley sustained the finest metalworking tradition in the Himalayas, and Newar artisans supplied images not only to local viharas but to Tibetan monasteries and, from the Yuan court onward, to China itself. Their shrine images were composite constructions: a lost-wax cast figure, a separately raised aureole, and a lotus throne, joined by tabs and pins so that each element could be worked by a specialist hand. The aureole is more than a frame. In Buddhist iconography it renders the prabhamandala, the body-halo of light emanating from an enlightened being, and its inhabitants extend the central figure's theological reach. The presence of a yoni and lingam alongside Buddhist deities reflects the entwined Buddhist and Saiva devotional life of the Valley, where the same patrons and the same workshops served both, and where iconographies borrowed freely across the boundary that later scholarship drew between them. Item # 73505

Lot: 669 - Nepalese Gilt Repousse Plaque of Ganesha with Consort, 16th C.

Himalayas, Nepal or Tibet. A gilt repousse plaque worked in high relief, its rounded field enclosed by a beaded roundel and a foliate outer border of scrolling leaves and clouds. Six-armed Ganesha sits enthroned on a lotus pedestal, elephant head crowned in a Bodhisattva-style tiara, a serpent looped across his chest and ritual attributes held in his many hands. A female consort, treated as a Tara-like shakti, perches on his thigh, while his vahana attends below beside a lion-like beast. The metalworker's chasing is exceptionally fine: incised jewelry, pleated garment hems, and the crisp filigree of the lotus petals. Such plaques were mounted as architectural or shrine ornament, likely part of a larger torana or temple fitting devoted to the remover of obstacles. Ganesha crossed readily between Hindu and Buddhist practice in the Kathmandu Valley, where Newar metalworkers served both traditions from the same workshops. Their repousse technique, hammering thin sheet from the reverse over pitch and then chasing the detail from the front, produced the deep, almost sculptural relief seen here while keeping the plaque light enough to fix to a wooden shrine or doorway. The crowned, jeweled treatment of the elephant god and the presence of an embracing shakti reflect the Tantric register in which he is invoked as Maha Ganapati, a protective and wealth-bestowing deity rather than merely an auspicious threshold guardian. Newar workshops exported such work north into Tibet in quantity, which is why plaques of this type resist a firm border between the two traditions. Item # 73506

Lot: 670 - Nepalese Tibetan Brass White Tara Statue, Lotus Pedestal

Central Asia, Nepal / Tibet, ca. early to mid-20th century CE. A brass image of White Tara, the goddess of compassion and longevity, standing on a tiered lotus pedestal. She is adorned with jewelry and a foliate crown inlaid with enamel; the lower garment is incised with floral motifs. Her right hand is raised in the gesture of reassurance (abhaya mudra), while the left is lowered. Each thumb and forefinger holds a lotus stem, from which blossoms rise beside her shoulders. The figure is cast in several pieces and is not permanently attached to the base: the feet are fitted with tenons that slot into holes cut into the pedestal, the lotus flowers rest within small metal loops, and the topknot finial is separately attached. Size: 10" W x 34" H (25.4 cm x 86.4 cm) Item # 197943

Lot: 671 - Tibetan Gilt Copper Chorten Reliquary, Turquoise and Coral

Central Asia, Tibet, Tibetan Buddhist. Tibet, Tibetan Buddhist, ca. 19th to early 20th century CE. A gilt copper chorten (stupa) reliquary, with a tiered lid of radiating repoussé petals set with turquoise and coral cabochons. The square copper base is incised with mantras, including Om Mani Padme Hum, and is mounted on a custom stepped display stand. A polished rock crystal orb forms the bumpa, the central vessel of the stupa, collared by a gilt canopy of scalloped petals and surmounted by a tapering spire inlaid with turquoise chips and flanked by winged gilt appendages. The finial rises through a crescent moon cradling a small crystal sphere topped by a red bead. Miniature chortens of this type enshrined relics or consecrated deposits for household devotion. Item # 203709

Lot: 672 - Jhankri Shaman Figure with Dhyangro Drum, Nepal, 19th C.

Himalaya, Nepal. A small standing figure carved in dense hardwood, its surface worn to a grey, weather-scoured patina, depicting a jhankri, the traditional Nepalese faith healer, mid-performance. He grips a double-headed frame drum, the dhyangro, across his chest, arms crossed and hands pierced through in openwork. Crossed bandoliers of bells are indicated in low relief over the torso, and the plaited hair falling to the waist marks him unmistakably as a shaman. Remnants of applied animal hair still cling to the crown, a common Himalayan practice for enlivening a shrine figure. The features are pared to essentials: a domed head, incised brows, a slit mouth. Modest in scale, the carving would have stood in a household or roadside shamanic shrine as a protective presence. The jhankri occupies a role distinct from the Buddhist lama and the Brahmin priest: a shamanic specialist among Nepal's Tamang, Magar, Rai, Limbu, and Gurung communities who diagnoses illness as soul loss or spirit intrusion and retrieves the patient's vitality through trance. The dhyangro, a double-headed frame drum with a long handle often terminating in a phurba-like point, is the practitioner's essential instrument; its beat carries the shaman on his journey and is answered by the ranks of bells worn across the chest, which announce and protect him in equal measure. Long uncut hair is the outward sign of a jhankri's calling, and shrine figures such as this one are frequently given real hair to strengthen the resemblance and, in local understanding, the figure's efficacy. Item # 73507

Lot: 673 - Tibetan Thokcha Amulet of the Garuda with Spread Wings, Miniature

Himalayas, Tibet. A miniature cast amulet in the form of the garuda, the solar bird deity of Himalayan Buddhism, its wings flung wide and its talons drawn together beneath a rounded, jewel-like body. The modeling is compressed and abstract: a domed head with bossed eyes, ribbed pinions swept upward, and a pierced opening between the legs that would have taken a cord. Metal, with a deep brown patina. Objects of this class, called thokcha ("fallen from the sky"), were worn or carried as protective talismans, the garuda invoked in particular against serpent spirits and poison. Presented on a wood block and plexiglas display base. Thokcha (thog lcags, literally "sky iron" or "thunder iron") are small cast metal objects found across the Tibetan plateau and traditionally believed to have fallen from the heavens as thunderbolts. Their actual origins are varied: some are genuinely ancient, drawn from pre-Buddhist Bon and steppe metalworking traditions, others are Buddhist-period castings of deities, ritual implements, and animals. Many were carried in gau (amulet boxes) or sewn to clothing, and some were ground into powder for medicine. A tradition of meteoritic iron underlies the name, though most surviving examples are copper alloy. The garuda (Tibetan khyung) entered Himalayan iconography from Indian sources and fused with an older Bon eagle deity. Wings spread and often clutching a snake, it is the enemy of the naga, the serpent spirits held responsible for illness, skin disease, and poisoning, which made it a natural choice for a protective charm worn on the body. Item # 73508

Lot: 674 - Tibetan Vajra Dorje and Ghanta Bell with Prajnaparamita Head, 18th C.

East Asia, Tibet. A paired set of Tantric ritual implements, cast in a bronze-type alloy. The dorje (vajra) is symmetrical, its two ends each closing into eight curved prongs about a central point, an emblem of the eight paths of the Dharma and of indestructible method; red and yellow thread binds the waisted midsection. Its companion ghanta bell rises from a silvered, relief-cast body banded with rows of vajras and beaded swag-like festoons, the handle surmounted by a serene crowned deity head, likely Prajnaparamita, above an open ring and a five-pronged vajra finial. Held together in practice, bell in the left hand and dorje in the right, the two embody wisdom and compassionate means in inseparable union. In Vajrayana liturgy the ghanta and dorje are never truly separate objects. The bell's voice stands for shunyata, emptiness or transcendent wisdom, conventionally gendered female; the vajra stands for upaya, skillful means and compassionate action, gendered male. A practitioner rings and crosses them in choreographed sequences so that the pairing is enacted physically at every ritual turn. The crowned head beneath the bell's finial is customarily read as Prajnaparamita, the personified Perfection of Wisdom, whose presence names what the instrument sounds; the legacy record identified her as Tara, a plausible but less standard reading for a bell handle. Examples from the McFadden Collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, among other venues in the United States and abroad. Drexel is currently hosting the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73509

Lot: 675 - Tibetan Gilt Copper Repousse Plaque Vajravarahi (Dorje Phagmo)

Tibet. A gilt copper repoussé plaque depicting Vajravarahi (Dorje Phagmo), a tantric goddess regarded as the embodiment of wisdom and a principal female meditational deity in Vajrayana Buddhism. She is shown in a warrior stance within an arched foliate mandorla, holding a curved flaying knife (kartika) in her upper right hand and a skull cup (kapala) in her lower left, attributes associated with cutting through ignorance. Her remaining hands hold additional ritual attributes, and she is adorned with a jeweled crown, earrings, and a flowing dhoti. Size: 4.75" W x 6.78" H (12.1 cm x 17.2 cm); 8.5" H (21.6 cm) on included custom stand. The surface retains rich gilding over a red ground—red being the color most associated with Vajravarahi’s transformative power—enhancing the sculpture’s spiritual and visual intensity. Such plaques once adorned portable shrines or sacred ritual implements, serving both as protective icons and as direct visualizations for advanced tantric meditation practices. Item # 196702

Lot: 676 - 19th C. Tibetan Thangka of Bhaisajyaguru, Medicine Buddha

East Asia, Tibet, Buddhist tradition. A thangka depicting a blue-hued Buddha seated in meditation on a lotus throne beneath a torana crowned by a temple pavilion. The right hand is extended in the gesture of generosity, holding a sprig of myrobalan, while the left holds an alms bowl, attributes associated with Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha. The composition is painted in mineral pigments, including mercury vermilion and lead white, on prepared cotton, with smaller Buddhas, lamas, and bodhisattvas arranged in registers against an indigo ground, and makara, dragons, and lotuses in the borders. Attendant figures and offerings appear in the foreground. Thangkas of this type served as focal points for meditation and healing rituals associated with the Medicine Buddha. Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, presides over the eastern paradise of Vaiduryanirbhasa, the "Pure Lapis Lazuli" realm, from which his azure body takes its color. His myrobalan fruit (Terminalia chebula) is the sovereign remedy of Tibetan medicine, and devotees recited his mantra and twelve great vows to cure illness of body and mind alike. Thangkas of this subject often hung in monastic medical colleges (mentsikhang) and were consecrated for use in healing rites. Please note that pigments in this piece contain levels of mercury and lead. Item # 204131

Lot: 677 - Tibetan Figure of Mahasiddha Tilopa Seated on Lotus, 19th C.

Himalayas, Tibet or Nepal. A heavy cast figure seated in ease upon an integral lotus throne, its lobed petals crisply modeled. The mustachioed adept wears a five-pointed crown, beaded necklaces, and swirling ribbons that rise into a pierced aureole behind the shoulders. In the left hand he holds a fish, the attribute that identifies him as the Mahasiddha Tilopa; the right lifts a lidded vase toward the chest. A serpent coils near the left foot. Cast by the lost-wax method with chased ornament and a warm brown surface flecked with green. Images of this type served as objects of devotion on household and monastic altars, focal points for lineage practice within the Kagyu tradition. Tilopa (traditionally 988 to 1069) is not a god but an enlightened human master, the spiritual forefather of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and teacher of Naropa. Buddhist lore places him for a time on the banks of the Ganges as a fisherman: he caught fish, blessed them with mantra, and by meditative power transferred their consciousness into pure Buddha fields, a story he used to teach Naropa that no phenomenon is inherently pure or impure. The fish he holds is read variously as his ability to draw the essence from spiritual teaching, as mastery over the cycle of birth and rebirth, and as that lesson in nonduality. The vase pressed to the chest, the serpent at the foot, and the princely crown and jewels are less usual for Tilopa, whose iconography more often shows him near-naked as a yogin. Some Himalayan workshops conflated adept and wealth-deity attributes, and the vase in particular belongs to the vocabulary of Jambhala and Vaisravana. Item # 73510

Lot: 678 - Tibetan or Nepalese Tantric Ritual Set, Sword, Axe and Yin-Yang Dish, 16th C.

Himalayas, Tibet or Nepal. A three-part tantric assemblage mounted for display: a double-edged iron sword with a flaring lobed pommel, a long-hafted axe lacquered vermilion with a green-and-orange painted blade, and a shallow lacquered dish bearing a gilt yin-yang roundel at its center. Within tantric practice such implements carry fixed meanings, the sword severing ignorance, the axe cleaving illusion, the dish figuring the paired forces of existence. The group is said to have served in divination rites, a role the wear on the blades and the abraded lacquer surfaces would support. Iron, wood, pigment and lacquer, presented together as a working ritual kit rather than as weapons. Tantric practice cultivated obscurity as a discipline. Texts were deliberately encoded, their language layered and elliptical, and that inaccessibility was part of the appeal: it created a class of specialist practitioners who alone could unlock the rites, and who positioned themselves to perform them on behalf of kings and other powerful patrons. Implements of this kind, at once weapon and symbol, belonged to that professional apparatus.\n\nExamples of objects from the McFadden Collection have been exhibited at Drexel University and Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, the Allentown Art Museum, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, and elsewhere in the United States and abroad. Drexel recently hosted the exhibition "Modern Ritual: The Art of Mary McFadden." Item # 73511

Lot: 679 - Edo Period Samurai Kabuto Helmet with Menpo Face Mask and Horsehair Wig

East Asia, Japan, Edo period. A samurai head harness of theatrical presence, pairing a russet-iron kabuto with its lacquered iron menpo. The bowl carries a russet-iron crest holder and cloth-covered fukigaeshi with braided borders, three rows of lacing and round medallions, while the three-part maedate rises in two long kawagata horns flanking a diamond boss set in an openwork floral mount. A long white horsehair wig sweeps over the bowl; cloth straps and lining remain in place. The menpo, modeled in the Nara manner with bold grimacing features, retains a four-tier russet-lacquered hineno jikoro of kiritsuke-kozane, imitation lamellae finished in dark blue kebiki-odoshi close-spaced lacing. Face armor of this type intimidated an opponent and anchored the helmet cords beneath the chin. By the later Edo period the kabuto had shifted from battlefield necessity to statement of lineage and rank, and its ornament grew accordingly: horsehair crests, gilt medallions, and towering maedate that would have been impractical in a melee. The kawagata, a stylized ox-horn or plow-shape form, belongs to a vocabulary of crest devices (kuwagata, wakidate, ushirodate) by which a commander announced himself at a distance.\n\nThe menpo, a half-mask covering cheeks, chin, and jaw, was as much psychological armament as protection. Nara-school makers were prized for expressive, deeply modeled faces with furrowed brows and open snarling mouths. The detachable nose piece, the pierced sweat hole beneath the chin, and the ori-kugi posts that gripped the helmet cords are all standard to the form. The jikoro of kiritsuke-kozane is a labor-saving Edo convention: solid plates embossed and lacquered to imitate the individually laced scales of earlier armor, then bound in kebiki-odoshi lacing to complete the illusion. Item # 73512

Lot: 680 - Japanese Lacquered Wood Seated Patriarch, Likely Ryumyo (Nagarjuna), 15th-18th C.

East Asia, Japan. A shaven-headed monk sits in meditation, robes falling in deep folds across crossed legs, the right hand raised in teaching and the left resting open in the lap. Carved from cedar in the yosegi zukuri method, multiple hollowed blocks joined with wooden pegs, and finished overall in black lacquer that thins to warm russet across the brow and knuckles. The sitter is probably Ryumyo (Nagarjuna), first human patriarch of the Shingon lineage, rendered with the portrait realism Japanese sculptors reserved for revered founders: asymmetrical features, heavy lids, a face observed rather than idealized. Such images occupied temple altars and memorial halls, receiving offerings as ancestral presences within the transmission of esoteric teaching. Retains an old glazed display case. Shingon tradition holds that Ryumyo, the Japanese name for the second-century Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, opened the iron stupa of southern India to retrieve the esoteric sutras, having received the secret teachings directly from Vajrasattva (Kongo Satta), who in turn received them from the primordial cosmic Buddha Mahavairocana (Dainichi Nyorai). He therefore stands at the head of the human patriarchal lineage, the hinge between cosmic revelation and its transmission on earth, and his portrait belongs to the sets of lineage patriarchs installed in Shingon temple halls. The yosegi zukuri (joined-block) technique that produced this figure was perfected by the Kei school workshops of Unkei and Kaikei in the Kamakura period and remained standard for centuries afterward. Hollowed blocks of cypress or cedar were carved separately and pinned together, which lightened the sculpture, reduced the splitting that plagues single-trunk carving, and freed the sculptor to model complex poses and fluid drapery. Paired with the era's turn toward humanistic realism, it made possible the intensely observed portrait sculpture, aging flesh, distinct asymmetries, unwavering expression, for which Japanese Buddhist carving is celebrated. Item # 73513

Lot: 681 - Korean Celadon Dragon-Head Ewer with Loop Lugs

East Asia, Korea, Joseon Dynasty. A globular ewer rises to a tall neck crowned by a modeled dragon head, its jaws parted so the open mouth serves as the pouring aperture. Horned, bug-eyed, and bearded with applied barbs, the beast confronts the strap handle that arcs from the shoulder to the crest. Two small opposing loop lugs at the base of the neck once carried a cord, likely securing a stopper or suspending the vessel. The wheel-thrown body retains faint throwing rings beneath a pale sea-green celadon glaze, finely crazed overall and stopping in an uneven line above the exposed reddish foot ring. Dragon-spouted pouring vessels of this type served wine or water at table, the auspicious beast lending the liquid a protective charge. Korean celadon (cheongja) descends from Chinese Yue and Longquan traditions but developed its own repertoire of animal-form ewers under Goryeo patronage, carried forward in coarser, thicker-glazed provincial wares of the early Joseon period. The dragon, ruler of rain and rivers in East Asian cosmology, is a natural governor of a vessel that pours: liquid issuing from the mouth of a rain-bringing beast is a visual pun as old as the form itself. The buff, iron-flecked body and the thick, crazed, silica-rich glaze pooling to a green in the recesses point to a stoneware fabric rather than true porcelain, a distinction worth confirming before the lot is described as porcelain in print. Item # 73514

Lot: 682 - Turkmen Silver Cuff Bracelets with Carnelian Cabochons, 19th C. (2)

Central Asia, Afghanistan or Turkmenistan, Turkmen culture. A matched pair of broad silver cuffs, each rolled into a deep tubular sleeve that would have sheathed the forearm nearly to the elbow. The exteriors are chased with scrolling vegetal arabesques within raised, roped bands, and set with rows of oval and lozenge cabochons of carnelian, their orange fire answered by traces of gilding across the engraved ground. Twisted wire borders and sawtooth flanges finish the long open seam. Cuffs of this scale, known as bilezik, formed part of a woman's ceremonial ensemble and doubled as portable wealth, their carnelian long credited with protective and fertility-assuring power. Worn as an apotropaic guard as much as an ornament. Nominally Sunni Muslim, the Turkmen preserved a wide body of pre-Islamic belief, much of it carried on the surface of their silver. Jewelry marked the passage from one stage of life to the next: girls began wearing small forms believed to secure future fertility, and the quantity of ornament increased as they approached marriageable age. Amuletic silver was worn by men and children as well, guarding against illness and the evil eye. Such pieces were also the household treasury. Substantial in silver weight, set with carnelian and other semi-precious stones, and often gilded by the mercury (fire) process for added color and value, they represented a family's liquid capital; in times of hardship a woman might surrender her jewelry to see the tribe through. Item # 73515

Lot: 683 - Turkmen Silver Cuff Bracelets with Carnelian, Pair, 19th C.

Central Asia, Afghanistan or Turkmenistan, Turkmen. A matched pair of broad silver cuff bracelets, each rolled into a deep tubular sleeve that would have armored the forearm from wrist to elbow. The surfaces are chased in three registers of scrolling tendrils and lobed cartouches, divided by twisted wire ribs and partly washed in fire gilding, the mercury-amalgam technique that gives Turkmen work its warm two-tone contrast. Nine oval carnelian cabochons in raised bezels punctuate each cuff, the stone credited with protective and life-giving power. Rows of cast bud-shaped prongs interlock along the opening, letting the cuff spring closed on the arm. Worn in pairs by women as bridal and festival adornment, such bilezik carried both amuletic force and portable wealth. Nominally Sunni Muslim, the Turkmen preserved a wealth of pre-Islamic belief, and much of it was carried in silver. Jewelry marked a woman's progress through life: a girl began wearing amuletic forms in early childhood, and her ornament accumulated as she approached marriageable age, culminating in the massive bridal ensembles for which the tribes are famous. Silver was thought to repel the evil eye and sickness, so men and especially children wore it too.\n\nCarnelian, the stone set here, was among the most potent of these materials, associated with blood, fertility, and protection. The jewelry was also a bank: handcrafted from precious metal and stones, it represented a household's reserve, and in times of hardship a woman might surrender her ornaments for the survival of the tribe. Item # 73516