Egyptian Miscellaneous


	established 1942

FOUR LARGE FIGURES FROM A COPTIC TAPESTRY

Originally part of a frieze in a large tapestry with warp of natural linen and weft of blue, pink, red, green, and yellow, comprising a dancer holding a basket of fruits, a shepherd leaning on a staff and wearing a long cloak, and two dancers, one holding a sickle, the other a hoe.
For related figures see E.D. Maguire, The Rich Life and the Dance, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, 1999, B1 and cover illus. (holding a sickle), Sotheby's, New York, December 7th, 2005, no. 24 (carrying a duck), K. Weitzmann, ed., Age of Spirituality, New York, 1979, no. 235 (carrying a ram).
For a larger fragment in the British Museum showing two hunters separated by vertical ornamental stripes see K. Wessel, L'art copte, Brussels, 1964, fig. 118. Also see A. Gonosova, Art of Late Rome and Byzantium in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1994, pp. 298-299, no. 104 (holding a branch or garland); the author notes that shepherds, "hunters, dancers, and similar figures from the linen curtains belong to the standard repertory of Roman and early Byzantine domestic art. In addition to a purely decorative role, their iconographic association with Dionysiac themes and seasonal and pastoral activities made them also broad allegories of life's blessings and renewal."

Ex coll: Dr. Ulrich Müller, Zurich, acquired between 1968 and 1978.

Late 4th-early 5th Century AD

29 1/4 to 25 3/4 in. (74.3 and 65.4 cm.)

Art of the Ancient World, 2007, no. 242
SNX203
$27,500

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