** A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this artwork will be donated to the Anthony Quinn Foundation, whose mission is to advocate for the important role arts education plays in personal development and in the overall improvement of social, economic and cultural systems. Learn more at aqfoundation.org **

Ancient Egypt, Third Intermediate to Late Dynastic Period, 21st to 31st Dynasty, ca. 1070 to 332 BCE. A lovely rectangular cedar wood panel decorated on the obverse with a layer of applied gesso that is painted with vibrant polychrome pigments. The wooden panel presents a lengthy funerary boat - with bent ornamental finials on the bow and stern topped with stylized lotus flowers - that is ridden by a single boatman. The individual dons a white shendyt skirt, pectoral collar, and coiffure while holding his left arm out in a beckoning gesture. Each side of the panel displays a framed ankh flanked by a pair of Was scepters, and both the upper and lower peripheries are lined with rectangular bars and columns in alternating colors. This panel was perhaps part of a larger wooden sarcophagus, and the single boatman sitting on the funerary boat perhaps represents the deceased being ferried down the Nile River and into the afterlife. Size (panel): 19.875" L x 4.75" W (50.5 cm x 12.1 cm); (frame): 20.375" L x 5.375" W (51.8 cm x 13.7 cm)

The funerary boat - customarily decorated with red, white, yellow, orange, and blue as we see here - is a traditional Egyptian funerary image created to symbolize the transport of a deceased individual from life to the afterlife. Scholars believe that the Egyptians envisioned death as a journey via boat across the River Nile - the sacred river which ran down the center of the country and was respected as a resource for agriculture, trade, transport, and a symbol of fertility. During the Sixth Dynasty, it became common to place wooden models of lifelike scenes in Egyptian tombs; by the Middle Kingdom, they were placed in the tomb chamber, around the coffin, although some very rich tombs had a separate chamber just for wooden models resembling the boat shown on this panel.

Provenance: ex-private collection of actor Anthony Quinn and his wife Katherine, Bristol, Rhode Island, USA acquired prior to 2000

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#169130

Losses and wear to corners of panel and painted gesso along some interior and peripheral areas as shown. Fading to some painted pigments, with chipping, fissures, and desiccation to gesso as expected, and minor nicks to wooden panel with some interior spalls. Nice preservation to decorative motif and pigments in many areas. Great patina to exposed wooden surfaces. Panel mounted within a modern metal display case with a frontal glass panel.