A Terracotta Figure of Aphrodite Anadyomene (the Aphrodite of Rhodes), Egypt, circa 1st Century B.C.

Estimate

5,000 - 8,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

A Terracotta Figure of Aphrodite Anadyomene (the Aphrodite of Rhodes), Egypt
terracotta
Height 9 3/4 in. 24.8 cm.

based on a Greek original of circa 100 B.C., kneeling on a high oval base, her head turned to her right, and wringing the sea-foam from her hair with her hands, her wavy hair parted in the center, surmounted by a stephane, and tied in a chignon in back.

Provenance

Félix Paponot (1835-1897), Chief Engineer of the Cairo-Ismailia Canal, said to have been found by him in 1866 in the necropolis of Magdoni(?) on the easternmost branch of the Nile Delta, according to a 19th century handwritten label on the base.
by descent to the present owner

Catalogue Note

The marble statuette which gives the type its name is in the Archaeological Museum in Rhodes, inv. no. 4685 (Chr. Mitchell Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and her Successors: a Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek art, Ann Arbor, 1995, fig. 24; http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/item/objekt/15478). For a related terracotta in the Louvre, inv. no. 1676, also said to be from Egypt, see S. Mollard-Besques, Catalogue raisonné des figurines et reliefs en terre-cuite grecs, étrusques et romains, Paris, vol. 3, 1972, no. D 4486, p. 99, pl. 59a (http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visitesrv=car_not_frame&idNotice=8413&langue=fr).

An Egyptian stele from the Félix Paponot collection is now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva, inv. no. A 2009-0002 (Christie's, London, October 27th, 2009, no. 99).