A Fine and Large Egyptian Limestone Relief Carved in Shallow Relief

A Fine and Large Egyptian Limestone Relief Carved in Shallow Relief
Traces of original polychrome
Old Kingdom / 5th Dynasty / 2454 - 2311 B.C

Size: 32cm high, 70cm wide, 5cm deep - 12½ ins high, 27½ ins wide, 2 ins deep

Provenance:
Ex Private Swiss collection, acquired mid 1960s and thence by descent
Ex Rupert Wace Limited London
Ex Private London collection

cf: A similar relief with a procession of ‘waiters’ carrying food-stuffs including live birds from the Mastaba of Thefw is illustrated in Prof. Dr. Selim Hassan’s article ‘Mastabas of Ny-ankh-Pepy and Others’ in ‘Excavations at Saqqara, 1937 - 38, Vol. II’ Cairo 1975, plate LXXXVI

The relief scene from a wall of a tomb depicts in the lower register a procession of offering bearers carrying a variety of birds. Hieroglyphic inscriptions incised before and behind the figure on the left in part referring to the lost figure ‘overseer of the domain, servant of Ka’. The lower part of the upper register shows a figure pulling on a catch net (the legs lean back to counterbalance the weight of the net) and birds with open wings try to escape capture, while the caught birds are shown within the net in the upper right corner.