Ibis figure - Important Piece - Ancient Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 300 - 30 B.C. Wood, linen and bronze. 12 cm height, 17 cm length. without stand. CONDITION: In a good state of preservation, it has lost the polychromy, probably gilded, on the surface of the body made of wood and stucco, as can be seen from the remains. PROVENANCE: - Private collection, P.S., Switzerland, born 1946. Acquired in the 1980s. - David Ghezelbash, Paris. DOCUMENTS: Provided of a certificate of authenticity from an spanish egyptologist and export license by the Ministry of Culture from Spain. DESCRIPTION: Statuette depicting a majestic sacred ibis perched on the ground with its legs folded, wings folded against its body and head erect. Under the legs there are still four fixing pins, indicating that it would have been fixed to a base, usually made of wood. The sculpture combines two materials: wood, cedar, carved for the body, originally polychromed, and lost-wax cast bronze, with cold incised details, for the head, legs and tail. The modelling is particularly naturalistic in the bronze parts, where descriptive details such as the texture of the legs and the tail feathers can be seen. On the other hand, the excavated eyes indicate that, originally, they would have housed inclusions of other material, which would enhance the liveliness and attractiveness of the image (fig. 1). The body, on the other hand, reveals the capacity for formal synthesis typical of Egyptian art; the volumes are rounded, and the angles that differentiate the folded wings are sharp and sharp. It is therefore a piece of exceptional elegance, where the delicacy of the detail is enhanced by the almost geometric fluidity of the overall silhouette. The Threskiornis aethiopicus or sacred ibis is distinguished by its flexible and graceful neck, which it keeps stretched forward when flying, by its long curved beak and by its white plumage, which contrasts with the black of its tail, neck and head; hence the use of two materials in the statuettes representing it, which in the great majority of cases have a body of marble or white-painted wood (fig. 2). This bird is able to distinguish between clean and dirty water, which was proof of its immense wisdom in the eyes of the Egyptians, who honoured it to the point of making it one of the incarnations of the god Thoth. In fact, some of the ibis statuettes were actually sarcophagi for ibis mummies (fig. 3), which were presented as offerings in the chapels dedicated to Thoth. The Egyptian god Dyeuthy, popularised under his Greek name, Thoth, was the god of wisdom and magic, of writing, science and the arts. He had authority over all other gods, and was the inventor of hieroglyphic writing and articulate language itself. He was associated mainly with the ibis but also with the baboon; he is often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis, or in the full form of a baboon. Thoth is also the inventor of the calendar, and was responsible for writing the royal annals on the fruits of the persea, the sacred tree of Heliopolis. Also linked to the world of the dead, he was present at the psychostasis or weighing of the soul of the deceased, being in charge of writing down the verdict of the judgement of Osiris. He was also considered to be the supreme architect, knowing the paths and trajectories of all things, and therefore lord of inventors and science. The spectacular black and white plumage of the ibis led some classical authors, such as Plutarch and Elian, to explain the Egyptians' assimilation of the animal with the moon, based on a parallelism with the moon's phases of illumination and disappearance. This symbolic aspect of the ibis is linked to Thoth's function as guardian and protector of the lunar cycle. In fact, it was the behaviour of this wading bird that underpinned the theology linked to the god Thoth; among other features, its wandering through the vegetation of the marshes gave rise to the cult of the god 'Thoth who is perched in his thicket', while the powerful and sharp beak made it associated with the writing instrument emblematic of the god of the scribes, but also with the fight against the serpent Apophis, the incarnation of evil. In his funerary aspect, Thoth is found in the room where the soul is weighed on a scale (psychostasis) where, before Osiris, the heart of the deceased was judged. His function was that of a scribe, as he had to write down the verdict of the lord of the underworld. Thoth was also considered the architect who knew the paths and trajectories of all things, the lord of inventors and wisdom, and was connected with music as the inventor of the lyre. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - BLEIBERG, E. Soulful Creatures. Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt. Brooklyn Museum. 2013. - CASTEL, E. Gran Diccionario de Mitología Egipcia. Aldebarán. 2001. - GUICHARD, H. et al. Animales y Faraones. El Reino Animal en el Antiguo Egipto. Catálogo de exposición. Obra Social La Caixa, Barcelona. 2015. - WILKINSON, R.H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames and Hudson. 2003. PARALLELS: Fig. 1 Ibis. Egypt, Late Egyptian or Ptolemaic period, ca. 600-30 BC. Bronze and stuccoed and polychrome wood with glass appliqués on the eyes, 33 cm high. Metropolitan Museum, New York, inv. 53.185a. Fig. 2 Ibis. Egypt, Ptolemaic period, ca. 332-30 BC. Bronze and stuccoed and polychrome wood, 35.5 cm high. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. E17380. Fig. 3 Ibis sarcophagus with mummy inside. Egypt, Ptolemaic period, ca. 305-30 BC. Body in gilded and polychrome wood, eyes in glass and gold and head and hind legs in silver, 42.5 cm high. Brooklyn Museum, New York, inv. 49.48a-b. Notes: - The piece includes authenticity certificate. - The piece includes Spanish Export License. - The seller guarantees that he acquired this piece according to all national and international laws related to the ownership of cultural property. Provenance statement seen by Catawiki. #ancientcivilisations