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Lot Essay
PUBLISHED:
R. A. Fazzini, Egypt-Dynasty XXII-XXV, Iconography of Religions, Vol. 16, Leiden, 1988, p. 12,33, pl. 23.
S. Schoske and D. Wildung, Gott und Götter im alten Ägypten, Mainz, 1993, pp.58-59, no. 38.
I. Grimm-Stadelmann (ed.), Aesthetic Glimpses, Masterpieces of Ancient Egyptian Art, The Resandro Collection, Munich, 2012, p. 145, no. R-415.
Natacha Rambova, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy Hudnet in Salt Lake City, Utah, is most famously known as the second wife of Rudolf Valentino, the silent film idol. However she herself was a renowned dancer, costume designer, director and actress, as well as a keen amateur Egyptologist, who built up a collection of art which encompassed both the modern and ancient world.
Here, the seated goddess is remarkable in many ways. Most unusual is that she is represented cupping her right breast, rather than her left. The only other known example of this pose is in the Cairo museum, cf. acc. no. CG39368. Iconographically, her hairstyle is also different. She wears a tripartite 'Hathor-style' wig with curled lappets, crowned by double scorpions. These suggest her association with a number of representations, beginning as early as the 18th Dynasty in Egyptian temples, of Isis with a scorpion on or near her head and, later in the 25th Dynasty, with two scorpions. Scorpions are commonly associated with both the goddess Selket and Isis because of their similar protective roles as guardians of the deceased. However, as J.-C. Goyon argues in Hededyt: Isis-Scorpion et Isis au Scorpion, Cairo, 1978, they are most likely not Isis-Selket but Isis-Scorpion, otherwise known as Hededet, a protective deity of Horus, who emerged in the Late Period.
R. A. Fazzini, Egypt-Dynasty XXII-XXV, Iconography of Religions, Vol. 16, Leiden, 1988, p. 12,33, pl. 23.
S. Schoske and D. Wildung, Gott und Götter im alten Ägypten, Mainz, 1993, pp.58-59, no. 38.
I. Grimm-Stadelmann (ed.), Aesthetic Glimpses, Masterpieces of Ancient Egyptian Art, The Resandro Collection, Munich, 2012, p. 145, no. R-415.
Natacha Rambova, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy Hudnet in Salt Lake City, Utah, is most famously known as the second wife of Rudolf Valentino, the silent film idol. However she herself was a renowned dancer, costume designer, director and actress, as well as a keen amateur Egyptologist, who built up a collection of art which encompassed both the modern and ancient world.
Here, the seated goddess is remarkable in many ways. Most unusual is that she is represented cupping her right breast, rather than her left. The only other known example of this pose is in the Cairo museum, cf. acc. no. CG39368. Iconographically, her hairstyle is also different. She wears a tripartite 'Hathor-style' wig with curled lappets, crowned by double scorpions. These suggest her association with a number of representations, beginning as early as the 18th Dynasty in Egyptian temples, of Isis with a scorpion on or near her head and, later in the 25th Dynasty, with two scorpions. Scorpions are commonly associated with both the goddess Selket and Isis because of their similar protective roles as guardians of the deceased. However, as J.-C. Goyon argues in Hededyt: Isis-Scorpion et Isis au Scorpion, Cairo, 1978, they are most likely not Isis-Selket but Isis-Scorpion, otherwise known as Hededet, a protective deity of Horus, who emerged in the Late Period.