An Egyptian painted gesso and wood portrait statuette of a w...

Hammer

£1,300

An Egyptian painted gesso and wood portrait statuette of a woman, probably Middle Kingdom, 12th dynasty, 1991-1802 BC, the arms made as separate pieces, inscribed ‘Tyndale collection’ label to base, 30.5cm high excluding later wood plinth

cf. a similar Egyptian wood figure dated to the 12th dynasty in the British Museum accession No. EA2373 and another in the Brooklyn Museum, New York, accession No. 86.226.11.

Provenance- label for Tyndale collection, indicating the figure was taken from a tomb at Luxor, probably in the first decade of the 20th century.
The collection label almost certainly refers to the artist Walter Tyndale (British, 1855–1943), who visited Egypt twice around 1906-10 and wrote two books about his travels entitled L'Égypte d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, published by Paris Hachette, 1910 and An artist in Egypt, published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1912.
There are two Ancient Egyptian shabti for Satmut which were excavated at Gurob with labels for the Tyndale collection in the National Museums, Liverpool (one is accession number 56.5.78), Walter Tyndale worked with Currelly Charles Currelly at Deir el-Bahari 1906-07. Currelly had worked at Gurob in the 1903-04 season and may have given the National Museums, Liverpool shabti to Walter Tyndale.

More Information

Lots of small areas of flaking to the painted and just so decoration. The right arm is loose and will detach and shows evidence of old glue around the area, the left arm looks as though it has been later glued, there are small worm losses to the base, now stuck on the later mahogany base with water stained Tindale collection label.