Statuette of Isis

All that survives of this statuette of Isis is the head and torso to below the breasts, the left of which she proffers with her right hand. The goddess wears the vulture headdress with abraded vulture head over a tripartite wig elaborately formed with vertical curls. The material is hard white glassy faience. The back-pillar is perforated laterally near the lower edge of the fragment.

The bland style of the portraiture, the curls of the wig, the precision of the carving in such details as the thumb nail, the brows and cosmetic line in relief, suggest the period of the earlier Ptolemies. Originally the complete statue would have shown the goddess, sister and wife of Osiris, seated, her hieroglyph on her head, offering the breast to her son, the infant Horus, on her lap.

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection 3 volume catalogue, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997).