PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, CIRCA 332-30 B.C.

This magnificent faience figure with a luscious turquoise hue depicts the goddess Isis nursing her son Horus. Isis is enthroned, wearing a tightly-fitted sheath dress, a beaded broad collar and a tripartite wig fronted by a uraeus. With her right arm she offers her left breast to her son, supporting the back of his head with her left arm. Horus wears a cap-crown, fronted by a uraeus, and his hair is styled into a sidelock of youth. The tenderness of the scene is emphasised by Isis’ calm and tranquil face, as well as Horus’ childlike stature, especially his naked paunched stomach as he rests on his mother’s lap. The detail of Isis’ tripartite wig and the sides of her throne are exquisitely rendered, exemplifying the pinnacle of Ptolemaic period craftsmanship. For a similar example, see inv. no. 55.121.5 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Comtesse Martine de Béhague (1870-1939) was a renowned cross-category collector who traversed the Mediterranean in her yacht, The Nirvana, in search of the finest works of art. Her rarefied collection of antiquities, medieval objects, Asian works of art and impressionist paintings were displayed at her home, the Hotel Béhague, now the Romanian embassy in Paris. After her death in 1939 she left her collection to her nephew, Hubert de Ganay (1888-1974) and it was later dispersed at the renowned 1987 auction of her collection in Monaco.