Egypt
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Ancient sculpture Paleography Glass and crystal Glass < 1900
Chronology : Origin
See also : Ancient sculpture Paleography Glass and crystal Glass < 1900
Chronology : Origin
masterpiece
2600 BCE Seated Scribe (4th or 5th dynasty)
Louvre
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
5th Dynasty around 2400 BCE
Intro
The Egyptian civilization boomed under the Fourth Dynasty, but the pyramids were the domains of the kings. Under the late 5th dynasty, ca 2400 BCE which was around 100 years after the Great Pyramids, they built a great necropolis near the Pyramid of Khufu at Giza.
Early Egyptians were cautious. In order to preserve the soul in case of damage to the mummy, they placed several painted limestone figures of the deceased as a young and vigorous man in the mortuary chamber also known as serdab. All kinds of offerings that could be useful to the deceased were accumulated therein.
The sculptures were made in the Royal workshops in Memphis. The memorial sculpture was inscribed with the name and social rank of the deceased and his family while the secondary figures were not. The remarkable anthropomorphic realism did not aim for a physical resemblance to the deceased and many of them are similar in face and expression.
Early Egyptians were cautious. In order to preserve the soul in case of damage to the mummy, they placed several painted limestone figures of the deceased as a young and vigorous man in the mortuary chamber also known as serdab. All kinds of offerings that could be useful to the deceased were accumulated therein.
The sculptures were made in the Royal workshops in Memphis. The memorial sculpture was inscribed with the name and social rank of the deceased and his family while the secondary figures were not. The remarkable anthropomorphic realism did not aim for a physical resemblance to the deceased and many of them are similar in face and expression.
1
Inspector Sekhemka
2014 SOLD for £ 15.8M by Christie's
On July 10, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 15.8M from a lower estimate of £ 4M the statuette of Sekhemka, Inspector of the scribes, 75 cm high. This big piece is in exceptional condition. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The man is sitting in a serene attitude, surrounded by his wife and his favorite son, both mid-scale. All three are named, with their titles. The wife starts a loving gesture. Hieroglyphs are detailing the long list of acceptable offerings.
The attitude of the man is very beautiful, with a serious gaze and the hint of a smile. He holds a partly opened scroll covered with fragile inscriptions that remain in perfect condition. The faces of the cube on which he sits are beautifully carved with offering bearers bringing geese, calves and flowers.
The man is sitting in a serene attitude, surrounded by his wife and his favorite son, both mid-scale. All three are named, with their titles. The wife starts a loving gesture. Hieroglyphs are detailing the long list of acceptable offerings.
The attitude of the man is very beautiful, with a serious gaze and the hint of a smile. He holds a partly opened scroll covered with fragile inscriptions that remain in perfect condition. The faces of the cube on which he sits are beautifully carved with offering bearers bringing geese, calves and flowers.
2
Weri
2022 SOLD for $ 9.9M by Sotheby's
The serdab of husband and wife Weri and Meti was excavated at Giza in 1913. It included seven limestone figures.
The 80 cm high figure of a standing man with a leg forward is certainly depicting Weri as a quietly smiling handsome young adult. It has been originally strengthened by a back pillar. Traces of red, yellow, blue, turquoise and black pigments were preserved. It was sold for $ 9.9M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on January 27, 2022, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The 80 cm high figure of a standing man with a leg forward is certainly depicting Weri as a quietly smiling handsome young adult. It has been originally strengthened by a back pillar. Traces of red, yellow, blue, turquoise and black pigments were preserved. It was sold for $ 9.9M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on January 27, 2022, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
#AuctionUpdate: An Egyptian limestone Figure of a Man, dating to the late 5th Dynasty, circa 2440-2355 B.C., achieves $9.9M after a heated 12-minute bidding battle. #SothebysMasters pic.twitter.com/NXkU7p7Yu2
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) January 27, 2022
3
Me-her-nefer
2022 SOLD for £ 6M by Christie's
A pair of Egyptian limestone groups was presented in the early 1760s to the new King George III from his ambassador in Constantinople who was also a trade envoy. They were donated before 1778 by the King to Thomas Worsley, his Surveyor-General of the Office of Works. They had been amidst the very first statues from the Egyptian Old Kingdom to reach England.
At that time when the Rosetta stone was not yet discovered, Egyptology was in infancy. The location of the finding was not memorized but both groups obviously came from the same serdab, certainly at Giza or Saqqara in the late 5th Dynasty.
A wrong interpretation as a representation of Isis and Osiris led to an incorrect adjustment of the heads on other bodies which was later restored when the hieroglyph readings made clear that the groups gathered three generations of a family.
One of the groups, 65 cm high carved from a single stone, was kept until current days in Worsley's family hall in Yorkshire. Its painting has faded. It was sold for £ 6M by Christie's on July 7, 2022, lot 10.
It displays a handsome seated man accompanied by a young boy, both gently smiling. The name of the family leader is partly scraped but has been interpreted as Me-her-nefer, not known in the in period records. The boy is identified in a later inscription in the statue as a king's agent in the land of the bow designating Nubia.
A portion of his right arm and leg is missing. It was arguably linking to a figure of his loving wife in front of him, as suggested from a similar example in the Brooklyn Museum, possibly sheared in a later antique time when the female representations were not welcomed or to remove the shame of a divorce.
The boy is interestingly in the same scale as his father. He is standing straight in full nudity with an uncircumcised penis. An index finger is held on the chin in a typical childish gesture of that time while the left arm is gently resting on the shoulder of the dad.
The fate of the other group is not discussed in the catalogue.
The funerary statue of Ka-nefer, a priest of Ptah and foreman of craftsmen, was sold for $ 2.8M by Christie's on December 9, 2005, lot 48. This limestone group is 36 cm high. Traces of original black and red pigments are preserved on the collar.
The deceased is seated on a high bench with his back against a support. He wears a kilt. The legs ara parallel and the hands are resting on the thighs. The left hand is open and the right hand is holding a cylindrical artefact. The musculature is well defined. He is identified by a hieroglyphic inscription on his feet.
The man is flanked on both side by a member on his family in a much smaller scale. Both are identified by their name and social position. The wife is a Royal confidant and the son is another overseer of craftsmen. Each of them is affectionately embracing Ka-nefer's leg.
At that time when the Rosetta stone was not yet discovered, Egyptology was in infancy. The location of the finding was not memorized but both groups obviously came from the same serdab, certainly at Giza or Saqqara in the late 5th Dynasty.
A wrong interpretation as a representation of Isis and Osiris led to an incorrect adjustment of the heads on other bodies which was later restored when the hieroglyph readings made clear that the groups gathered three generations of a family.
One of the groups, 65 cm high carved from a single stone, was kept until current days in Worsley's family hall in Yorkshire. Its painting has faded. It was sold for £ 6M by Christie's on July 7, 2022, lot 10.
It displays a handsome seated man accompanied by a young boy, both gently smiling. The name of the family leader is partly scraped but has been interpreted as Me-her-nefer, not known in the in period records. The boy is identified in a later inscription in the statue as a king's agent in the land of the bow designating Nubia.
A portion of his right arm and leg is missing. It was arguably linking to a figure of his loving wife in front of him, as suggested from a similar example in the Brooklyn Museum, possibly sheared in a later antique time when the female representations were not welcomed or to remove the shame of a divorce.
The boy is interestingly in the same scale as his father. He is standing straight in full nudity with an uncircumcised penis. An index finger is held on the chin in a typical childish gesture of that time while the left arm is gently resting on the shoulder of the dad.
The fate of the other group is not discussed in the catalogue.
The funerary statue of Ka-nefer, a priest of Ptah and foreman of craftsmen, was sold for $ 2.8M by Christie's on December 9, 2005, lot 48. This limestone group is 36 cm high. Traces of original black and red pigments are preserved on the collar.
The deceased is seated on a high bench with his back against a support. He wears a kilt. The legs ara parallel and the hands are resting on the thighs. The left hand is open and the right hand is holding a cylindrical artefact. The musculature is well defined. He is identified by a hieroglyphic inscription on his feet.
The man is flanked on both side by a member on his family in a much smaller scale. Both are identified by their name and social position. The wife is a Royal confidant and the son is another overseer of craftsmen. Each of them is affectionately embracing Ka-nefer's leg.
18th Dynasty - Sekhmet
2015 SOLD for $ 4.2M by Sotheby's
Living conditions are harsh in ancient Egypt and the most outstanding gods are rarely peaceful. Pharaoh is expecting help and protection from them. The gods and goddesses have animal heads, which allows the worshipers to appreciate differences and strengths in their temperament. The rest of the body is human.
The lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet is ranked high in that pantheon. A lioness is a wild mother whom you should not try to annoy. Sekhmet is powerful and leads the king to his success in war. She does not tolerate the odd and her cult is difficult. She is not joking and her expression is impassive despite the offerings.
During the 18th dynasty, Amenhotep III resolutely places himself under the protection of Sekhmet. This alliance is favorable as no significant event disturbs the outer peace during his long reign, around 3400 years ago.
This Pharaoh multiplies the figures of Sekhmet and his funerary temple contains nearly 700 of them. The priestesses were committed to serve a different statue every day of the year.
One of these monumental granite figures, 2.10 m high, had belonged to the collections of John Lennon and A. Alfred Taubman. It was sold for $ 4.2M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on December 8, 2015, lot 23.
The goddess wearing a long tight dress is sitting on her throne. She is physically identified by her feline head but her mane is covered by a wig. Cartouches including the name of Amenhotep III confirm the hypothesis that it was carved during that reign.
The lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet is ranked high in that pantheon. A lioness is a wild mother whom you should not try to annoy. Sekhmet is powerful and leads the king to his success in war. She does not tolerate the odd and her cult is difficult. She is not joking and her expression is impassive despite the offerings.
During the 18th dynasty, Amenhotep III resolutely places himself under the protection of Sekhmet. This alliance is favorable as no significant event disturbs the outer peace during his long reign, around 3400 years ago.
This Pharaoh multiplies the figures of Sekhmet and his funerary temple contains nearly 700 of them. The priestesses were committed to serve a different statue every day of the year.
One of these monumental granite figures, 2.10 m high, had belonged to the collections of John Lennon and A. Alfred Taubman. It was sold for $ 4.2M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on December 8, 2015, lot 23.
The goddess wearing a long tight dress is sitting on her throne. She is physically identified by her feline head but her mane is covered by a wig. Cartouches including the name of Amenhotep III confirm the hypothesis that it was carved during that reign.
masterpiece
1345 BCE Nefertiti Bust
Neues Museum Berlin
Discovered in 1912.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1330 BCE Portrait of a Pharaoh
2019 SOLD for £ 4.7M by Christie's
A 28 cm high fragmentary figure in brown quartzite was sold for £ 4.7M by Christie's on July 4, 2019, lot 110. This head is capped with the double crown which is an attribute of the main god, Amen, an equivalent of the future Zeus of the Greeks.
A young man with such an attribute is necessarily a reigning pharaoh. Amen is a multiple god who has no personal figuration. Pharaoh is his incarnation.
The heretic king Akhenaten had replaced the worship of Amen by that of the solar circle Aten, certainly for political reasons. He thus escaped the hold by the Theban priests. He had established his capital in the middle of the desert, on a site whose Arab name will be Amarna. This religious revolution was accompanied by an artistic breakthrough. Amarnian artists have for the first time sought a naturalistic representation. Nefertiti was a wife of Akhenaten.
The head for sale is carved with realism, attesting to the post-Amarna period. The only candidate is Tutankhamen, the son of Akhenaten, who returned to the cult of Amen in the third year of his reign around 1330 BCE after a transition of undocumented events that looks like a huge mess. The last two pharaohs of his eighteenth dynasty, Ay and Horemheb, are senior dignitaries. The 19th dynasty, that of the first Ramesses, brings another style.
Fortunately the effigy of Tutankhamen is exceptionally well known. The quartzite head is recognizable by the unhealthy depression between eyes and eyebrows and by the weakness of the lower lip, resulting from the full consanguinity of his parents.
A young man with such an attribute is necessarily a reigning pharaoh. Amen is a multiple god who has no personal figuration. Pharaoh is his incarnation.
The heretic king Akhenaten had replaced the worship of Amen by that of the solar circle Aten, certainly for political reasons. He thus escaped the hold by the Theban priests. He had established his capital in the middle of the desert, on a site whose Arab name will be Amarna. This religious revolution was accompanied by an artistic breakthrough. Amarnian artists have for the first time sought a naturalistic representation. Nefertiti was a wife of Akhenaten.
The head for sale is carved with realism, attesting to the post-Amarna period. The only candidate is Tutankhamen, the son of Akhenaten, who returned to the cult of Amen in the third year of his reign around 1330 BCE after a transition of undocumented events that looks like a huge mess. The last two pharaohs of his eighteenth dynasty, Ay and Horemheb, are senior dignitaries. The 19th dynasty, that of the first Ramesses, brings another style.
Fortunately the effigy of Tutankhamen is exceptionally well known. The quartzite head is recognizable by the unhealthy depression between eyes and eyebrows and by the weakness of the lower lip, resulting from the full consanguinity of his parents.
masterpiece
1325 BCE Funerary Mask of Tutankhamun
Cairo Museum
Discovered in 1925.
The image is shared by Wikimedia with attribution Roland Unger, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
The image is shared by Wikimedia with attribution Roland Unger, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
around 300 CE Coptic Codex
2024 SOLD for £ 3.07M by Christie's
In the early 1950s a manuscript on papyrus in a bold Coptic script was unearthed from a cache in dry sands of Upper Egypt. The now extinct Coptic was the language used by St. Anthony, the first Christian ascetic hermit of the desert from about 275 CE.
It is arguably the earliest surviving Christian liturgical book. The texts are dispositioned in two columns per page, all by the same scribe. The pages were originally paginated up to 136 in a square format 146 x 152 mm of 68 folios. 51 folios are remaining. Some pages are complete. A few corrections above the line had been made by the scribe.
This codex is dated from middle 3rd century to early 4th century from paleographic considerations. That period was confirmed in 2020 by radiocarbon analysis. At that time literary texts wee still preserved in papyrus rolls. The Christian church was encouraging the adoption of the user friendly codex format for enduring records, with both sides being written on. The pages in a codex are stitched together.
This work is therefore contemporary to the invention in Egypt around 320 of the monastic life by St. Pachomius in the follow of St. Anthony.
Its five texts include the complete Biblical books 1-Peter and Jonah. The Peri Pascha Meliton and the 2-Maccabees are incomplete. A non Biblical text may be a homily for the use of a monastic community. The whole constitutes a lectionary related to the Easter themes of martyrdom and resurrection. The Jewish Maccabees had been early monotheistic martyrs, and the Jewish story of Jonah and the whale prefigures the resurrection of Christ.
It was identified as the Crosby codex from a donator of the University of Mississippi where it remained until 1981, and later as the Crosby-Schøyen codex after Mr Schøyen managed to re-unite some fragments to the parent manuscript.
It was sold for £ 3.07M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Christie's on June 11, 2024, lot 1 in the sale of the Schøyen collection. The papyruses have been vacuum sealed within double-sided archival plexiglass plates. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
It is arguably the earliest surviving Christian liturgical book. The texts are dispositioned in two columns per page, all by the same scribe. The pages were originally paginated up to 136 in a square format 146 x 152 mm of 68 folios. 51 folios are remaining. Some pages are complete. A few corrections above the line had been made by the scribe.
This codex is dated from middle 3rd century to early 4th century from paleographic considerations. That period was confirmed in 2020 by radiocarbon analysis. At that time literary texts wee still preserved in papyrus rolls. The Christian church was encouraging the adoption of the user friendly codex format for enduring records, with both sides being written on. The pages in a codex are stitched together.
This work is therefore contemporary to the invention in Egypt around 320 of the monastic life by St. Pachomius in the follow of St. Anthony.
Its five texts include the complete Biblical books 1-Peter and Jonah. The Peri Pascha Meliton and the 2-Maccabees are incomplete. A non Biblical text may be a homily for the use of a monastic community. The whole constitutes a lectionary related to the Easter themes of martyrdom and resurrection. The Jewish Maccabees had been early monotheistic martyrs, and the Jewish story of Jonah and the whale prefigures the resurrection of Christ.
It was identified as the Crosby codex from a donator of the University of Mississippi where it remained until 1981, and later as the Crosby-Schøyen codex after Mr Schøyen managed to re-unite some fragments to the parent manuscript.
It was sold for £ 3.07M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Christie's on June 11, 2024, lot 1 in the sale of the Schøyen collection. The papyruses have been vacuum sealed within double-sided archival plexiglass plates. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Manuscripts masterpieces from The Schøyen Collection will be on view in Paris from April 18-23! Come and see the Crosby-Schøyen Codex, which is the earliest known book in private hands, and one of the earliest books in existence (middle 3rd century into 4th century): pic.twitter.com/w9la70KmVK
— Christie's Books (@ChristiesBKS) April 16, 2024
1340-1345 Mamluk Candlestick
2011 SOLD for £ 4.5M by Sotheby's
In Egypt, the later reign of the Mamluk sultan An Nasir Muhammad was a short period of stability with the strengthening of the role of the viceroys who were emirs in charge of overseeing the territories of the kingdom. Being constantly on the field of war, the emirs left the direction of their home to mayors or major-domos who had their own place in the high nobility.
A Mamluk candlestick reflects this hierarchical structure. It was sold for £ 4.5M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on April 6, 2011.
The base is a truncated cone slightly curved, 34 cm in its largest diameter. It is topped by a stick that supports the candle holder, also a truncated cone, for a total height of 38 cm. This piece of brass inlaid with copper and silver is decorated on its whole surface with inscriptions, armorials and other animal, vegetal and geometric motifs.
The white eagles and cups in cartouches shaped as reversed teardrops are the blazon of the emir Tuquztamur. The inscriptions testify to the faithfulness of the major-domo of his noble house.
The identification of the Emir enables to date the candlestick with some accuracy because his role of viceroy was limited to a period of five years (741-746 AH, 1340-1345 AD). Curiously, this information can not locate the object, since the emir executed several successive appointments in Egypt and Syria.
A Mamluk candlestick reflects this hierarchical structure. It was sold for £ 4.5M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on April 6, 2011.
The base is a truncated cone slightly curved, 34 cm in its largest diameter. It is topped by a stick that supports the candle holder, also a truncated cone, for a total height of 38 cm. This piece of brass inlaid with copper and silver is decorated on its whole surface with inscriptions, armorials and other animal, vegetal and geometric motifs.
The white eagles and cups in cartouches shaped as reversed teardrops are the blazon of the emir Tuquztamur. The inscriptions testify to the faithfulness of the major-domo of his noble house.
The identification of the Emir enables to date the candlestick with some accuracy because his role of viceroy was limited to a period of five years (741-746 AH, 1340-1345 AD). Curiously, this information can not locate the object, since the emir executed several successive appointments in Egypt and Syria.
1356 Mamluk Mosque Lamp
2024 SOLD for £ 5.1M by Bonhams
A mosque lamp forwards the word of God through the dedication of a powerful ruler. Hanging from the ceiling, the enameled glass lamp shines like a star over the believers in the darkness of the building. The technique of simultaneously gilding and enameling glass in a single firing was almost unique to the Mamluk court.
A magnificent example 38.5 cm high provides through its transparent walls a verse of the Qur'an and the name, title and shield of its patron the powerful Mamluk Emir Sarghitmish. The verse states that 'Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. His light is like a niche in which there is a lamp'. It has the typical form of a rounded angular body with flaring conical mouth, with six applied loop handles.
Sarghitmish ruled Egypt beside his fellow Emir Shaykhu from 1351 CE. The Sultan was a child whom they deposed when he tried to get some power of his own. The reinstated him in 1356. At that date the pious and learned Sarghitmish built in Cairo a madrasa or Islamic college in the vicinity of the mosque of Ibn Tulun. The lamp was certainly executed for the madrasa.
It was sold for £ 5.1M from a lower estimate of £ 600K by Bonhams on November 12, 2024, lot 69 consigned by the descendants of a prime minister of Egypt, Nubar Pasha. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The death of Shaykhu killed by rebel Mamluks in 1357 brought too much power to Sarghitmish who was jailed by the Sultan in 1358 and died later in that year. The Sultan was killed in 1361 by an Emir.
A magnificent example 38.5 cm high provides through its transparent walls a verse of the Qur'an and the name, title and shield of its patron the powerful Mamluk Emir Sarghitmish. The verse states that 'Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. His light is like a niche in which there is a lamp'. It has the typical form of a rounded angular body with flaring conical mouth, with six applied loop handles.
Sarghitmish ruled Egypt beside his fellow Emir Shaykhu from 1351 CE. The Sultan was a child whom they deposed when he tried to get some power of his own. The reinstated him in 1356. At that date the pious and learned Sarghitmish built in Cairo a madrasa or Islamic college in the vicinity of the mosque of Ibn Tulun. The lamp was certainly executed for the madrasa.
It was sold for £ 5.1M from a lower estimate of £ 600K by Bonhams on November 12, 2024, lot 69 consigned by the descendants of a prime minister of Egypt, Nubar Pasha. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The death of Shaykhu killed by rebel Mamluks in 1357 brought too much power to Sarghitmish who was jailed by the Sultan in 1358 and died later in that year. The Sultan was killed in 1361 by an Emir.
1489 Mamluk Qur'an
2019 SOLD for £ 3.7M by Christie's
The Mamluk period of Egypt paradoxically got its culmination with a former slave of Circassian origin named Qaitbay who reigned from 872 to 901 AH. A general appointed commander-in-chief by a transitory Sultan, Qaitbay had been the right man in the right place by his reputation for piety and by the immense wealth he had accumulated since his emancipation.
Throughout his long reign Qaitbay successfully resisted the ambitions of his powerful Ottoman neighbors. Despite his conservative reputation, he knew how to take diplomatic initiatives. The giraffe he sent to Florence was the only one of its kind to be seen in Europe between antiquity and 1826 CE.
He was a great builder. Like his predecessors, he endowed his religious institutions with inalienable donations identified as waqf in Islamic law. The most luxurious Korans of his reign are calligraphed in the very large format 107 x 80 cm named Baghdadi.
A complete Qur'an made of 311 folios on half-Baghdadi cream paper 68 x 45 cm was sold for £ 3.7M from a lower estimate of £ 500K by Christie's on May 2, 2019, lot 11. This Qur'an is not inscribed as a waqf and we do not know for which foundation it was created but it is luxuriously dedicated to Sultan Qaitbay. Its writing is large, making it comfortable to read aloud on a lectern.
This manuscript is signed with the personal and courtesy names of the scribe. The nickname, al-Maliki al-Ashrafi, attests to a double allegiance to an unidentified noble person, perhaps simply to indicate that he works in the royal studio.
It is dated 21 Jumada I 894 AH, corresponding to April 30, 1489 CE. Some details of the realization show that it was done in a urgency, with mistakes removed by a simple scraping of the thick paper and even with omissions in the illustration. This hurry could be related to health problems of the aging Sultan.
Throughout his long reign Qaitbay successfully resisted the ambitions of his powerful Ottoman neighbors. Despite his conservative reputation, he knew how to take diplomatic initiatives. The giraffe he sent to Florence was the only one of its kind to be seen in Europe between antiquity and 1826 CE.
He was a great builder. Like his predecessors, he endowed his religious institutions with inalienable donations identified as waqf in Islamic law. The most luxurious Korans of his reign are calligraphed in the very large format 107 x 80 cm named Baghdadi.
A complete Qur'an made of 311 folios on half-Baghdadi cream paper 68 x 45 cm was sold for £ 3.7M from a lower estimate of £ 500K by Christie's on May 2, 2019, lot 11. This Qur'an is not inscribed as a waqf and we do not know for which foundation it was created but it is luxuriously dedicated to Sultan Qaitbay. Its writing is large, making it comfortable to read aloud on a lectern.
This manuscript is signed with the personal and courtesy names of the scribe. The nickname, al-Maliki al-Ashrafi, attests to a double allegiance to an unidentified noble person, perhaps simply to indicate that he works in the royal studio.
It is dated 21 Jumada I 894 AH, corresponding to April 30, 1489 CE. Some details of the realization show that it was done in a urgency, with mistakes removed by a simple scraping of the thick paper and even with omissions in the illustration. This hurry could be related to health problems of the aging Sultan.
Ramadan marks the month in which the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. This spectacular royal Mamluk Qur’an is over 500 years old. Created for the Sultan Qaytbay of Egypt, its gold chapter (sura) heading inscriptions are painted on a lapis lazuli ground. pic.twitter.com/jD26zoDvoe
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) April 23, 2020
1939 Necklace of Queen Nazli
2015 SOLD for $ 4.3M by Sotheby's
A royal wedding is managed in two steps in 1939, in Cairo and Teheran: the son and heir of the Shah of Iran marries the sister of the King of Egypt. This union is political: the very recent Pahlavi dynasty seeks to assure its legitimacy in the Muslim world.
The Queen Mother Nazli is the widow of King Fuad. After being rarely present in the ceremonies during her 17 years with Fouad including 14 years as queen consort of Egypt, the still pretty 45-year-old mother of the bride is the queen of the wedding.
Queen Nazli is wearing a diamond tiara and necklace commissioned for the occasion to Van Cleef et Arpels.
The platinum necklace is composed of small round and beguette diamonds for a total weight of 217 carats. A spectacular radiant pattern directed to a sun adorns the upper chest. It is inseparable from the neck lacing in four rows of diamonds going on each side to a diamond knot.
The necklace of Queen Nazli was sold for $ 4.3M from a lower estimate of $ 3.6M for sale by Sotheby's on December 9, 2015, lot 506.
The photo of the queen with her two French jewels is shared by Wikimedia with an error in the identification of the ceremony that does not impair its belonging to the public domain.
The Queen Mother Nazli is the widow of King Fuad. After being rarely present in the ceremonies during her 17 years with Fouad including 14 years as queen consort of Egypt, the still pretty 45-year-old mother of the bride is the queen of the wedding.
Queen Nazli is wearing a diamond tiara and necklace commissioned for the occasion to Van Cleef et Arpels.
The platinum necklace is composed of small round and beguette diamonds for a total weight of 217 carats. A spectacular radiant pattern directed to a sun adorns the upper chest. It is inseparable from the neck lacing in four rows of diamonds going on each side to a diamond knot.
The necklace of Queen Nazli was sold for $ 4.3M from a lower estimate of $ 3.6M for sale by Sotheby's on December 9, 2015, lot 506.
The photo of the queen with her two French jewels is shared by Wikimedia with an error in the identification of the ceremony that does not impair its belonging to the public domain.
