An Egyptian Polychrome Limestone Relief Fragment of Arsinoe II, Ptolemaic Period, reign of Arsinoe II, 279/274-270 B.C., or shortly thereafter

carved in sunk relief with a bust of the deified Arsinoe II holding a lily-scepter, and wearing a bracelet, armlets, broad collar, tripartite wig of echeloned curls surmounted by the vulture headdress, ram's horns, and the remains of an elaborate composite crown, her name in a cartouche at right.

reputedly from the island of Elephantine
Galería Domingo Viau, Buenos Aires
estate of Oscar E. Carbone, Buenos Aires (Francisco J. Marchesano, Buenos Aires, Colleción Oscar E. Carbone, May 26th-June 1st, 1975, no. 783, illus.)

Surface slightly worn, scratched, and dirty, with several minor chips as shown, relief repaired from three fragments, losses along break across lower right corner, small areas of painted plaster restorations along perimeter of relief fragment were meant to make object fit better within old wood rectangular frame.
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For a closely related example in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Harvard University Art Museums, inv. no. 1983.6) cf. Richard A. Fazzini and Robert S. Bianchi, Cleopatra's Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, Brooklyn, 1988, cat. 65; the author mentions another relief in Hildesheim (op. cit., fig. 43) which could have belonged to the same monument, possibly in Memphis. The complete headdress of Arsinoe II, of which only the lower part is visible on the present fragment, comprised "the Red Crown, without its stinger; the two plumes; sun disk; cow's horns; and two uraei, each with a sun disk on its head" (op. cit, p. 180).