Ca. 664-30 BC. Late Period - Ptolemaic Dynasty. A bronze statuette of Osiris on a modern stand. He wears an atef crown, plumed on each side with ostrich feathers and decorated on the front with a uraeus cobra. The modelled face also wears a false beard, and his mummiform body holds the signature crook and flail, crossed over his torso. This would have been given as a votive offering to a shrine or temple of the god in exchange for his favour. Osiris was the god of the underworld and renewal after death, but also of renewal in the physical world, like the regeneration of the crops after winter. Osiris' cult boomed in the 1st millennium BC, and this period saw a rapid increase in the number of bronze votives like this one given in exchange for anything from a fertile harvest to a pleasant afterlife. Size: L:210mm / W:53mm ; 232g. Provenance: From the important collection of a London doctor A.R; passed by descent to his son; formerly acquired before 2000 on the UK art market.