A large Egyptian bronze Osiris
Late Period, circa 664-332 B.C.
The heavy hollow-cast standing deity depicted mummiform, his arms folded across the chest, his fisted hands emerging from beneath his shroud, holding a striped crook and flail, recessed for inlays, wearing the atef crown with frontal uraeus and recessed striated side plumes, the face with eyes and one brow inlaid, the other brow recessed for inlay, now missing, with finely incised plaited false beard and recessed beard straps, 43cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
Private collection, Paris, prior to 1980.
Private collection, Avignon, acquired ca. 1995 at Drouot, Paris.
with Jean Derlac, Isle sur la Sorgue, France, 2015.
with G. Tomasso, UK.
with Desmet Fine Art, Brussels.
Private collection, UK, acquired from the above 2016.
Such figures of Osiris, although usually not as large as the above lot, were made in profuse quantities during the Late Period, reflecting the importance and popularity of the god. The figures served as votive offerings and have frequently been found in temples dedicated to the god, as well as in other unrelated offering contexts. There is an Osiris figure of similar impressive proportions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, also dated to the 26th-30th Dynasties, acc. no. 61.45.

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