Limestone Wall Fragment from the Tomb of Vizier Bakenrenef

Culture: Egyptian

Period: 26th dynasty, Reign of Psamtik I, 664-610 B.C.

Material: Limestone

Dimensions: 30.3 cm x 60.8 cm

Price: 24 000 Euro

Ref: 1559

Provenance: Swiss private collection at least since 1955. Thence with Galerie Nefer in Zurich, Switzerland. From there acquired on 6 August 1985 by a US private collector. With a copy of the certificate and invoice of Galerie Nefer, which also confirms the Swiss provenance.

Condition: Unrestored with beautifully preserved colours.

Description: Large limestone relief with diligently worked out hieroglyphs and magnificently preserved colours. The characters in four vertical registers deeply cut into the stone were painted in red, black and green to differentiate them better from the limestone background. It possibly is about a part of the biographical treatise, reporting about victory and defeat. In the second column to the right reading “under my sandals, live” or “can live” is about triumph over an enemy. Whereas in the third column to the right the phrase “fell on the ground” is about the submission of the enemy. This relief, executed in extraordinary quality, originates from the rock-hewn tomb of Bakenrenef, a vizier of Pharaoh Psamtik I, in Saqqara. The tomb was found almost intact in 1827. The cult spaces were decorated with magnificent reliefs, such as the present one, which were consequently sold to numerous museums and private collections. The famous reliefs of Bakenrenef are today in the Egyptian collections in Munich, Lyons, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the Field Museum Chicago and in Cairo. See: “Saqqara IV, Tomba di Bakenrenef (L. 24), Attivitá del Cantiere Scuola 1985-1987”, E. Bresciani, Università degli Studi di Pisa.