New Kingdom, 1292-1069 BC. A limestone upper section of a funerary stele, curving to the right hand side; to the lower left the figure of Osiris, mummiform body, skin with green pigment, wearing Atef crown, broad collar, crossed over sash to the front; hands extended holding crook, flail and sceptre, seated on a throne; to the front an offering table with vase; behind the standing figure of the goddess Maat as Lady of the West, wearing tripartite wig, Broad Collar, close fitting dress; headdress with band across brow, ostrich feather plume to the top; both figures within a naos shrine, roof supported by lotus flower columns; mounted on a custom-made stand. 17.9 kg, 46cm including stand (18"). Property of a gentleman living in central London; formerly in the collection of the famous French Egyptologist, Alexandre Varille (1909-1951); thence by family descent until 2015. Alexandre Varille was from a cultured family from Lyon. While he studied Economics, he met Victor Loret, his Egyptology professor at the University of Lyon, and followed him in his devotion to Egyptian philology and archaeology. Varille began working in Egypt in 1931 together with his colleague Clément Robichon (1906-1999), and the following year he was made a member of the Institute Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo. In 1939 he excavated the gates of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV from the temple of Medamud, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. He wrote his thesis in Egyptology on an important Egyptian functionary of the New Empire, Inscriptions concernant l'architecte Amenophis, fils de Hapou, published by Jean Vercouter, IFAO, 1968. He dedicated his first publication about Karnak (IFAO, 1942) to Schwaller de Lubicz. He only returned to France for short periods to publish with Clément Robichon the book entitled En Egypte, then published late 1955, in New York. Eternal Egypt was translated from French by Laetitia Gifford. He died in a car accident in France in 1951 just after the presentation of his symbolic theory at the French Institute, section Academy of Sciences. [A video of this item is available to view on TimeLine Auctions website.]

Very fine condition. Astonishing colour.