AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF OF A WINGED GENIUS

Lot 21
13.10.2023 19:00UTC +00:00
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£ 3 912 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1027847
Lot 21 | AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF OF A WINGED GENIUS
Estimate value
£ 2 500 000 – 4 000 000
AN ASSYRIAN GYPSUM RELIEF OF A WINGED GENIUS

REIGN OF ASHURNASIRPAL II, CIRCA 883-859 B.C.

Finely carved in shallow relief with the figure of a bearded, winged Genius (Apkallu), wearing a horned miter and a heavy pendant earring, a rosette bracelet on his right wrist, armbands on both arms, dressed in fringed garments, with two daggers secured with a girdle under the left arm, kneeling to the right and with his arms held out touching the Sacred Tree before him.

26 ½ x 29 5/8 in. (67.5 x 75.2 cm.)





Provenance

Room I-23, upper register, The Northwest Palace, Nimrud, Iraq.

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), excavated in the 1840s.

Likely removed from Nimrud circa 1845-1847 and shipped to Britain by Henry Rawlinson, the British consul at Baghdad (1810-1895).

London art market, by 1968; Egyptian, Western Asiatic, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sotheby's, London, 26 November 1968, lot 38.

Acquired at the above sale, and thence by descent to the present owners.



Literature

J.E. Reade, The Neo-Assyrian Court and Army: Evidence from Sculptures, Iraq, 34, 1972, p. 109.

J. Meuszynski, Die Reliefs von Assur-nasir-apli II. Die Sammlungen außerhalb des Irak, 1976, p. 470.

S.M. Paley, King of the World, Ashur-nasir-pal II of Assyria (883-859 B.C.), New York, 1976, p. 61.

S.M. Paley and R.P. Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and their Positions in the Northwest - Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) II, Mainz am Rhein, 1987, no. I-23 e ii (shema), pp. 5, 22 & 23, pl. 2,6.

Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, The University of California Los Angeles, the University of Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, no. P427105.

K. Englund, Nimrud Und Seine Funde: Der Weg Der Reliefs in Die Museen und Sammlungen, Orient‐Archäologie, Band 12, Rahden/Westf, 2003, p. 115.
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