Statuette of Isis
Life Story
The goddess wears a broad collar and a vulture headdress over a curled tripartite wig with lappets falling on the breasts. Her right hand offers the left breast. At the rear, a little below the base of the wig, is a striated and perforated suspension lug. The material is hard pale blue-green glassy faience.
The lower part of this fine quality figurine is missing from the level of the navel; also both arms from the shoulders. There are no traces of the infant Horus whom Isis normally nurses at the breast. It is probable that the goddess was shown standing, and her head-dress would have been in the form of a modius coronet and a sun-disk flanked by cow horns.
Cyril Aldred & Geoffrey T. Martin, 1997
Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection 3 volume catalogue, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997)
Provenance
Purchased by the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia from Peter Sharrer in 1974 out of funds provided by Robert and Lisa Sainsbury.
On display
Title/Description: Statuette of Isis
Born: 0050 c. - 0100 c.
Object Type: Figure
Materials: Faience
Measurements: h. 63 x w. 32 x d. 30 mm
Accession Number: 548
Historic Period: Ptolemaic (late), 1st century BC, 1st century
Production Place: Africa, Egypt
Credit Line: Purchased with support from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury, 1974
