An Egyptian Polychrome Cartonnage Mummy Mask, Late Ptolemaic Period, circa 100-30 B.C.

wearing a broad collar and wig with headband knotted in back and Eye of Horus in relief in front, the stylized hair falling in linked spirals over the forehead, the gilt face with eyes and eyebrows painted black and white, the lappets decorated on the left with a seated figure of Nephthys and on the right with a seated figure of Isis, a diminutive figure of a woman wearing a diademed tripartite wig on the back; traces of bitumen.

Galerie des Saints-Pères, 11 rue des Saints-Pères, Paris
Belgian private collection, aquired from the above on April 26th, 1980

Losses and flaking to pigment, gesso, and gold leaf overall especially on lappets of wig and bottom of plastron, bitumin staining on sides with dripping towards back contemporary with ancient manufacture, approximately five by two inch loss to gesso and pigment on reverse affecting the shoulder, upper arm and upper body of painted figure, scattered cracks, staining, discoloration, and exposed linen.
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For related examples see G. Grimm, Die Römischen Mummienmasken aus Ägypten, Wiesbaden, 1974, color pl. A, and pl. 4,4.