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拍品专文
This gem-like sculpture reflects the complexity of iconography surrounding the worship of Sobek and related Egyptian crocodile gods. Masterfully carved from a subtly-veined green feldspar, the muscular legs and torso of the crocodile are powerfully rendered, enhanced by the alternating rectilinear and diamond patterning of the crocodile’s scales and the ridges of its back. The falcon’s head is surrounded by a striped tripartite wig, which masks the transition from bird to reptile. The physical strength and fertility of the crocodile, as well as its watery home in the Nile or in lakes, linked it to the Nile flood, rebirth, and regeneration, and to major deities like Osiris and Re. For a faience amulet of a reclining falcon-headed crocodile wearing a solar disk in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 1989.281.95, see H. Kockelmann, “Sobek,” in D.C. Patch and B. Hainline, eds., Divine Egypt, no. 155.
A perforation present on top of the head is likely for the attachment of an atef-crown, as observed on similar sculptures in bronze (see the examples in Hannover, Kestner Museum, inv. no. 1935.200.573 and in the British Museum, inv. no. EA37450; for examples carved in a dark green schist without the crown and resting on a narrow base, see the examples in Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, inv. no. 22.347 and in Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, inv. no. 20598). A similar performation drilled off-center on the crocodile’s back, just below the wig, is of less certain function. A faience example in the Louvre features a nude male figure lying in a similar location along the back of a crocodile, engaged in the cultic act of crowning the deity, apparently in celebration of the return of the Nile flood, and may offer an explanation for the presence of the performation on the present figure (inv. no. E 11734; see p. 264, fig. 4 in P.P. Koemoth, “Couronner Souchos pour fêter le retour de la crue,” in L. Bricault and M. J. Versluys, eds., Isis on the Nile. Egyptian Gods in Roman and Hellenistic Egypt).
On either side of the stylized temple pylon upon which the god rests, four baboons are shown standing with their arms upraised, seemingly supporting the torus and cornice of the pylon. These animals evoke the dance of baboons at sunrise, which was a form of praise to the sun god Re. Although the deity represented here may be identified as Sobek-Re, a startling number of cults of crocodile deities were active during the later phases of Egyptian civilization, mainly connected to the Faiyum region, an area strongly associated with the cult of Sobek from at least the Middle Kingdom. By the Ptolemaic era, temples to composite crocodile gods proliferated in the towns of the Faiyum, featuring pylon-shaped podia intended for mummified crocodiles, some of which were adorned with elaborate crowns and floral garlands, and carried in solemn processions. Oracular decisions were delivered from the crocodile cults of deities such as Soknopaios, who might also be the god represented here. A limestone composite crocodile (Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, inv. no. 02.5752) with a falcon head was excavated in the North Temple at Karanis in the Faiyum, and a similar unprovenanced example is in the Brooklyn Museum (inv. no. 16.86). Although numerous examples in bronze depict either a crocodile or falcon-headed crocodile atop a simple pylon, no other known example depicts the iconography of standing baboons, emphasizing the complexity and innovation of the imagery surrounding these unusual composite cults.
Comtesse Martine-Marie-Pol de Béhague was a renowned cross-category collector who traversed the Mediterranean on 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, and it was later dispersed at the renowned 1987 auction of her collection in Monaco. Béhague’s extant acquisition ledger informs that she acquired this unique object from Maurice Nahmann in Cairo in 1926.
A perforation present on top of the head is likely for the attachment of an atef-crown, as observed on similar sculptures in bronze (see the examples in Hannover, Kestner Museum, inv. no. 1935.200.573 and in the British Museum, inv. no. EA37450; for examples carved in a dark green schist without the crown and resting on a narrow base, see the examples in Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, inv. no. 22.347 and in Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, inv. no. 20598). A similar performation drilled off-center on the crocodile’s back, just below the wig, is of less certain function. A faience example in the Louvre features a nude male figure lying in a similar location along the back of a crocodile, engaged in the cultic act of crowning the deity, apparently in celebration of the return of the Nile flood, and may offer an explanation for the presence of the performation on the present figure (inv. no. E 11734; see p. 264, fig. 4 in P.P. Koemoth, “Couronner Souchos pour fêter le retour de la crue,” in L. Bricault and M. J. Versluys, eds., Isis on the Nile. Egyptian Gods in Roman and Hellenistic Egypt).
On either side of the stylized temple pylon upon which the god rests, four baboons are shown standing with their arms upraised, seemingly supporting the torus and cornice of the pylon. These animals evoke the dance of baboons at sunrise, which was a form of praise to the sun god Re. Although the deity represented here may be identified as Sobek-Re, a startling number of cults of crocodile deities were active during the later phases of Egyptian civilization, mainly connected to the Faiyum region, an area strongly associated with the cult of Sobek from at least the Middle Kingdom. By the Ptolemaic era, temples to composite crocodile gods proliferated in the towns of the Faiyum, featuring pylon-shaped podia intended for mummified crocodiles, some of which were adorned with elaborate crowns and floral garlands, and carried in solemn processions. Oracular decisions were delivered from the crocodile cults of deities such as Soknopaios, who might also be the god represented here. A limestone composite crocodile (Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, inv. no. 02.5752) with a falcon head was excavated in the North Temple at Karanis in the Faiyum, and a similar unprovenanced example is in the Brooklyn Museum (inv. no. 16.86). Although numerous examples in bronze depict either a crocodile or falcon-headed crocodile atop a simple pylon, no other known example depicts the iconography of standing baboons, emphasizing the complexity and innovation of the imagery surrounding these unusual composite cults.
Comtesse Martine-Marie-Pol de Béhague was a renowned cross-category collector who traversed the Mediterranean on 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, and it was later dispersed at the renowned 1987 auction of her collection in Monaco. Béhague’s extant acquisition ledger informs that she acquired this unique object from Maurice Nahmann in Cairo in 1926.